Travel chaos on Sussex railway after power outage

Thameslink, Southern and Gatwick Express, said shortly before 4am that “no trains will be running until further notice” after widespread signalling failure and urged people not to travel.

Some routes reopened by 7am but others remained closed or suffered severe delays well into the afternoon.

Engineers battled throughout the day to repair the faults.

Services between Littlehampton and London Victoria, Brighton and London and Chichester were heavily disrupted and reduced to an hourly timetable.

Crowds at Brighton station (Image: Sussex News and Pictures)

Thameslink did not run services between Cambridge and Brighton, while there was a reduced service at Preston Park, Hassocks, Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath towards Gatwick Airport.

A Network Rail spokesman said: “Shortly after 3am, a UK Power Networks outage significantly impacted our Three Bridges Signalling Centre, which controls the railway’s traffic light system across the majority of our Sussex route.

“Although power was restored at 6.30am it’s still had a significant impact on our customers.

“In addition, an issue with a set of points at Haywards Heath – the moveable sections of track that move trains from one track to another – reduced the number of trains we could run through the station as two of the platforms were unavailable until the issue was fixed at around 11am.

“We’ve also found a problem with a set of points at Preston Park which is restricting the number of trains we can run to and from Brighton and Hove.

“Our engineers are on site and working to fix this as quickly as we can.

“A number of Southern, Thameslink and Gatwick Express services remain significantly disrupted until further notice.

“We continue to reintroduce services where possible and anticipate a much improved service for this evening’s peak.

“We’re really sorry to any passengers disrupted this morning and encourage everyone to check with their train operator before travelling for the latest information and updates.”

Angry passengers at Brighton station spoke of their frustration.

Chris Williams, from Hove, was waiting for a train to St Pancras for the Eurostar to Paris.

“I’m used to the disruption,” he said.

“I was supposed to be going to London on Saturday but I cancelled that because of engineering works causing long diversions.

“A combination of strikes, engineering works and signalling failures make the service very unreliable.

“I don’t have a car but I understand why people would use them instead.

“I am really angry with the government for not sorting it out. They have recently said we are a motoring nation.”

Ruth Turner, from Marple near Manchester, had come down to Brighton for the weekend for her granddaughter’s birthday.

“I decided to travel home on Monday as Sundays can be difficult with engineering works,” she said.

“It’s just frustrating. We’ve had some gas issues at home so I was hoping to be back in time to sort that out.”