Work on London Underground line will mean 'fewer disruptions' after 'unacceptable' service
A London MP has issued an update on a section of the Tube network that had seen 'severe' disruption. Fleur Anderson, who represents Putney, Southfields, Roehampton and Wandsworth Town, updated customers via an X yesterday (Monday, October 14).
It comes after commuters in South London expressed their fury over 'unacceptable' delays on the Wimbledon stretch of the District line. It has faced multiple suspensions and delays between Wimbledon and Edgware Road.
Ms Anderson said: "I have received numerous emails about issues on the District line recently and experienced these travel disruptions too. I have written to TfL and Network Rail asking for urgent action on unacceptable levels of disruption at East Putney, Southfields and Putney Bridge station.
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"They have informed me that services on the Wimbledon and Richmond branches have been impacted by recent signal failures, in this complex and busy area of the network. TfL and Network Rail maintenance teams attended together on Tuesday, October 1, proactively replacing a number of trackside assets including a faulty signal cable they believe to have been the root cause of the signal failures disrupting services on the Wimbledon branch."
Hope services will improve
She added: "They will continue to monitor the performance of these assets, and hope to see service performance now improve as a result. TfL and Network Rail have a programme of maintenance activities planned over the coming months to renew this part of the network to help improve reliability and reduce the volume of unplanned disruptions.
"Whilst I welcome the news that the fault has possibly been fixed, this is far from an isolated incident at stations on the Wimbledon branch on the District Line. It has caused huge frustration and much anxiety for passengers, including school children, the elderly and disabled, for nearly two weeks, I have written to TfL and Network Rail, and TfL Commissioner Andy Lord, to ask for a meeting to discuss how this incident happened, what measures have been put in place to ensure it cannot happen again and why communication and updates with passengers have been so poor.
"Please continue to contact me if you are having any issues on the District Line and I will pass these on."
Network Rail and TfL apologise
A Network Rail spokesperson said on October 4: “We’re sorry to any passengers whose journeys have recently been disrupted on the District Line between East Putney and Wimbledon as a result of a track circuit failure at Southfields."
A TfL spokesperson told The Standard on October 7: “We apologise to District line customers for the delays they experienced over previous weeks. The signal failures in the East Putney area that had been causing delays have now been repaired following close collaboration with colleagues at Network Rail.
“As part of that work, several assets have been replaced and a normal service is now in operation. We will continue to closely monitor the performance of our services and we expect customers will now experience a more reliable service.”
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