The loss of train service this morning affecting Motspur Park, Raynes Park and Wimbledon is outrageous.
I asked for an immediate explanation and received the below response from the managing director of Network Rail’s Wessex route and the managing director of South Western Railway.
I will also be raising this with the Secretary of State.
I asked SW Railway about compensation for passengers affected. Passengers whose journeys were affected today should check their delay repay page to claim compensation, by clicking here. If you were unable to travel you should tick the two hour plus box on the form.
Any single, day-return or advanced ticket purchased for 19/11/18 will be able to travel on South Western Railway services with the same time restrictions for 20/11/18. Should a customer decide not to travel, they can send their original tickets to the original retailer for a refund. Any purchases that are made through a SW Railway outlet (whether ticket office, ticket vending machine or via the internet) will receive a full refund with no administration fee being charged.
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Dear Mr Hammond,
Thank you for contacting us this morning about severe disruption today, particularly to main line and suburban services.
This was caused by significantly overrunning Network Rail engineering work which blocked all lines between Weybridge and London Waterloo.
We are very sorry for the inconvenience this will have caused to your constituents, and may have caused to your journey. The level of service today has been unacceptable for our passengers and well below the standard they deserve and rightly expect.
The late engineering work, which was essential to replace old infrastructure, meant we were unable to open any lines between Weybridge and Waterloo. This also meant a large number of trains could not leave their depots, severely reducing the service we could run.
All four lines between Weybridge and Waterloo, which had to remain closed while safety critical work was completed, were reopened just after 09.30.
Surbiton, Earlsfield and Raynes Park stations, which were closed to passengers to avoid overcrowding while the service was severely disrupted, have now reopened.
Safety is our highest priority and we had to test the railway after completing work to make sure the track was safe for our trains to run over. We are looking into why the work overran, which we will update you on separately.
As soon as it was clear that work would not be completed on time we advised our passengers not to travel, to use alternative routes or to delay their journey on our services.
Throughout the rest of today we will work as hard as possible to recover the service, although passengers should still expect severe delays, for some services to be revised or cancelled and stations to be very busy.
Once again, we are sorry for the poor service your constituents have experienced today.