South Western Railway disruption: Services cancelled as main routes into London cut off

Tens of thousands of rush-hour commuters have had their travel plans wrecked by signal failures. The key rail junction of Havant in Hampshire is completely blocked.

Trains cannot run from Portsmouth to London Waterloo on South Western Railway (SWR), or on Southern between Brighton, Chichester, Portsmouth and Southampton. Passengers are being urged to catch buses instead.

The problems came to light on Tuesday night. Network Rail engineers worked on the issue but, says SWR, "have not been able to fix the problem completely".

​In a tweet, SWR said: “Due to a number of signalling problems in the Havant area all lines are blocked. Disruption is expected until the end of the day. Ticket acceptance on local buses has been arranged.”

Southern confirmed the signalling problems were affecting its services, saying: "A fault with the signalling system at Havant means trains are unable to run past Chichester. Please travel on Stagecoach 700 between Portsmouth and Chichester."

Problems are expected to continue all morning, and may affect the evening rush hour.

Trains from Waterloo are being turned around at Petersfield.

In a separate issue, a points failure at Aldershot has blocked the SWR line connecting Alton with London Waterloo. Services cannot run through the station. The issue is also affecting trains between Guildford and Ascot. Disruption is expected until midday.