'Meltdown Monday' leaves hundreds of thousands of rail passengers stranded across the country

Hundreds of thousands of commuters were left stranded on ‘Meltdown Monday’ in one of the worst ever days for rail chaos.

The misery for passengers travelling into Waterloo, Britain’s busiest station, is likely to continue until Christmas with the RMT union plotting strikes on the beleaguered South Western Railway (SWR) service.

The train company took the unusual step of telling customers not to travel after engineering works overran by four hours, shutting down major commuter routes into the capital.

SWR, which runs services into Waterloo, bore the brunt of the chaos but Southern Rail, the Gatwick Express, and Thameslink also suffered disruption due to separate engineering work and signalling problems.

In the north, passengers on  Northern rail and TransPennine Express were hit by cancellations and reduced services due to leaves on the line and a points failure on the track linking Manchester airport to the city centre.

The mayhem on SWR was caused by the failure of network Rail to complete weekend maintenance on 14 miles of track near Surbiton in Surrey on time. A twisted rail was discovered on track close to Hampton Court.

Network Rail had been due to hand control back to South Western Railway by 4.30am yesterday but with less than 30 minutes notice informed the train operator of the need to repair the track. 

The delay meant train lines between Weybridge in Surrey and Waterloo, which handles almost 100 million passengers a year, remained shut until 10am with a huge knock on effect throughout the day. 

Data published by rail information website trains.im showed that at 10.45am some 269 SWR trains were cancelled or more than 30 minutes late, equivalent to 75% of all services.

Southern services between East Croydon and London Victoria were also hit badly, affecting trains to Gatwick.

Those workers who had managed to get to work then struggled to get home with lengthy delays and widespread cancellations to evening services.

Commuters are increasingly angered and frustrated by the service offered by SWR, jointly owned by FirstGroup and the Chinese state-owned MTR Corporation, since taking over the south west franchise just 16 months ago.

SWR is in talks with the Department for Transport to renegotiate its contract after winter timetable changes planned for December were put on hold.

Strike action by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union in a dispute over the deployment of guards on trains has hit SWR hard with the final of a series of stoppages due to take place on Saturday, coinciding with England’s autumn international against Australia at Twickenham.

An RMT spokesman said it would consider further strikes in the run-up to Christmas, dubbing yesterday ‘Meltdown Monday.

“One option will be more and increased strikes,” said a spokesman, adding: “South Western franchise is a basket case.”

Mick Cash, the RMT’s general secretary, called on Chris Grayling,  the Transport Secretary, to resign. “He should go, and he should go now,” he said.

One industry insider suggested the RMT now “smelt blood” and would use the chaos to pile pressure on the Government to nationalise the south western routes.

Commuters vented their fury on SWR.

Will Fearnley-Whittingstall, who set up the 1,000-strong South Western Railway Passenger Action group, said: “Since SWR took over the franchise in August 2017, we have had nothing but appalling service and lots of delays.”

Anthony Smith, chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus, said: “Passengers rely on the railway - this morning tens of thousands of passengers coming into Waterloo could not. Such late notice of the fundamental problems on the approaches to Waterloo this morning is unacceptable.”

Steve Brine, Conservative MP for Winchester and Chandler’s Ford, said: “The travelling public have had a miserable few months and I can say, both as a commuter and a local MP, we are absolutely at the end of our tether.

“It is not acceptable to say don’t travel. People make plans, they have jobs and they need to get on with their lives.”

A Department for Transport spokesman said: “The disruption is unacceptable, and we are seeking an urgent explanation from Network Rail as to why their engineering works have overrun.”

Both Network Rail and SWR apologised for the disruption, cancellations and delays.