South West Trains delays: Waterloo commuters face major disruption after emergency works

Tens of thousands of rail commuters suffered major disruption after a catastrophic track failure outside Waterloo main line station.

Engineers were carrying out emergency repairs to a section of track near to Waterloo causing major disruption to trains travelling into and out of the station on Monday morning.

South West Trains services, which operate services on the affected route, said the disruption was expected to last all day until 11pm meaning delays getting home again tonight for those who do eventually make it into London.

The rail operator said the track defect had forced the closure of platforms one to four at Waterloo - London's busiest station and used by 100 million passengers a year.

All suburban trains into Waterloo were cancelled, South West Trains said.

A railway source said: "The problem could not have happened at a worst place, at the worst time at the busiest station in London.

"All suburban services uses the points and everything just came to a stop.

"There is horrendous disruption across the south because of the knock-on effect."

He added: "It is not a good Monday morning."

Passengers packed onto the platforms at stations outside central London including Woking and Surbiton after trains were forced to terminate early because of the disruption.

Lucy Powell, 23, a personal assistant who works in St Pauls, was caught up in the delays at Woking station.

She told the Standard: "Trains sped through the station without stopping despite passengers on the overcrowded platforms being told that they would stop.

"The ones that did stop ended up terminating at the station which left the station packed."

Other commuters took to social media to vent their frustration at the delays.

ITV news co-ordinator Amanda Compton wrote: "Monday morning sardines into Waterloo after track fault."

Hannah Kinch said: "Looks like every person of working age in Surrey had descended on Surbiton station in an attempt to get to work in London... #Waterloo."

Another passenger, tweeting under the name DWSurrey, said: "The scene at Woking when you decide to change platform at last minute contradicting previous announcements."

Ed Scoble wrote: "Massive disorganised delays into Waterloo from @SW_Trains but still better than @SouthernRailUK."

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An NR spokesman said: “We have problems with track points in the throat of the station impacting on four of Waterloo’s platforms causing disruption for many.

“Our Engineers are on site looking to fix the problems as quickly as possible. We apologies to passengers for their disrupted journeys.”