Clapham

The lessons of 1988’s fatal train crash at Clapham may be fading from the industry’s collective memory, warns RAIB.

NETWORK Rail moved Wessex Route Managing Director Becky Lumlock from her role a week after engineering work overran and shut the South Western Main Line, which is Wessex’s chief route into London.

Andy Thomas takes over, moving from NR’s Welsh route. Lumlock’s new role will feature her taking a lead on NR Chief Executive Andrew Haines’ vision for the future of NR.

Tens of thousands of commuters were unable to get to work on Monday November 19, after track maintenance work overran by five hours. All four tracks of the South Western Main Line remained closed until 0930. Network Rail had been due to hand back the tracks at 0430.

The blockade in south London meant train operator South Western Railway could not move rolling stock out of its busy Wimbledon and Clapham Junction depots, which resulted in service disruption for the entire day.

All SWR services to London from Bournemouth, Southampton, Portsmouth, Exeter and Salisbury were halted. By lunchtime a handful of trains were running.

There were chaotic scenes at Clapham Junction station, as

passengers attempted to join Southern services. But Waterloo, Britain’s busiest station, was largely empty.

SWR advised passengers not to attempt to travel, but the warning was issued too late for most passengers. Many took to Twitter.

Gary Blowes said: “Your service has got to the point where you are not only affecting people’s journeys, but also their ability to do their jobs, which risks careers, reputations and livelihoods.”

BBC presenter Zoe Kleinman commented: “It is absolutely beyond pointless advising people who need to get to work on a Monday morning not to travel.”

By 1030, SWR had cancelled almost 300 trains, equivalent to 75% of its scheduled services. Woking, Surbiton, Raynes Park and Earlsfield stations were closed altogether.

Network Rail Chairman Sir Peter Hendy apologised on Twitter: “I, and all of us at Network Rail, are really sorry for this morning’s engineering overrun. We know it caused huge inconvenience. Our CEO and the Wessex senior team are working hard with SWR to sort things out today, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Passenger watchdog Transport Focus said such late notice of fundamental problems on the busy approaches to Waterloo was completely unacceptable, leaving passengers no time to make alternative plans.

NR said an internal investigation was under way to find out what went wrong. Spokesman James Crook added: “We apologise and we know that is not good enough. We were carrying out maintenance and renewals on a 12-mile stretch of track. It did not go to plan, but we could not hand back until we had completed the testing of every signal on each of the four tracks.”

Network Rail later said that as track workers were about to start tamping ballast between Surbiton and Hampton Court Junction, they noticed what it termed a “track geometry issue”. Tamping was halted, although it appears no track was subsequently re-laid.

A South Western Railway source pointed out that performance on the Wessex Route has been declining for seven consecutive years, and suggested there was no sign of the trend changing. The company told passengers that it did not seek to hire replacement buses because the scale of the disruption was so great.

The RMT union called for the resignation of Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling over what it termed “Meltdown Monday”. The union is continuing with a year-long campaign of strikes over the future role of guards on SWR, which included stoppages on most Saturdays throughout November.

Liberal Democrat MP Ed Davey, who represents Kingston and Surbiton, said: “Commuters will be extremely angry that, after 18 months of appalling services, stations are shut and trains cancelled due to Network Rail failing. When will Grayling act?”

Waterloo station handles 100,000 passenger journeys on a normal weekday, and 100 million entries and exits a year. Surbiton station handles more than nine million passengers a year, Woking eight million and Earlsfield seven million.