Railway failure means fewer trains running between Portsmouth and London Waterloo

A MAJOR signalling problem on the railway network means far fewer trains are running between Portsmouth and London Waterloo this afternoon.
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A complex and ‘unusual’ failure near Surbiton means only a very limited service can run and there will not be enough trains to carry everyone who wants to travel, says South Western Railway.

Network Rail Southern region managing director John Halsall said: ‘I’m so sorry for the major problems passengers that are facing today and both Network Rail and South Western Railway are asking people not to travel on trains from Waterloo.

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The signal failure is near the Surbiton area.The signal failure is near the Surbiton area.
The signal failure is near the Surbiton area.
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‘This is an unusually complex problem and we’re working as hard as we can to resolve it, but even if we can fix it soon, the disruption is likely to continue for the rest of the day.

‘We can only run a very limited service from London Waterloo, and as a result we are having to limit the number of trains we’re running the other way, otherwise we will soon run out of trains at one end and space to put them at the other.

‘As soon as we can get things moving normally again we will, but until then please don’t travel.’

SWR’s managing director, Claire Mann, added: ‘This disruption is so severe that we are urging our customers not to travel on our network until further notice.

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‘While we work with Network Rail to fix this problem, a rail replacement bus service is currently in operation on affected routes.’

Tickets are also valid on TfL, Southern Railway, GWR and Cross Country services.

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