Waterloo travel chaos: Station FIRE will create second day of misery for commuters
TWITTER/GETTY Thousands of commuters will face chaos at Waterloo station
The blaze is expected to halt South Western Railway trains in and out of the country’s busiest railway station. The travel chaos comes just days after snow halted many services and crippled the network causing misery for travellers. National Rail confirmed there would likely be continued problems this morning to train timetabling in an announcement on Twitter. They said: “There may be some delays and short-formed services tomorrow morning due to trains and train crew displacement.
“More information and advice will be provided as soon as it is available.” Last night saw thousands of commuters left stranded as the fire affected three of the train lines. Platforms one to nine at the station were all out of order last night.
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Trains due to arrive at the station were unable to get passed, leaving thousands of people stuck waiting on the concourse and many forced to sit on the stationary trains for over an hour. A spokesman for South Western Rail said: “Due to a lineside fire at London Waterloo some lines are blocked. “Train services running across the whole South Western Railway network may be cancelled, delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.”
Last night all West of England services started and terminated at Basingstoke and all mainline trains towards London Waterloo terminated at Clapham Junction. Platforms two to nine are all expected to be working normally this morning but platform one will remain out of action meaning there could still be disruption to services. The failure of some trains to make it into the station last night also means that not all trains and staff are in the correct place for today. Disruption is therefore expected to the timetable today with South Western Railway warning some trains will be cancelled, delayed, altered at short notice or have fewer carriages than normal.
Crowd at Waterloo is frankly astonishing pic.twitter.com/rU43rpOYTw — Zoey (@ZoeyCherche) December 11, 2017