Tens of thousands of commuters to mainline Waterloo station suffered huge disruption again today following a major signal failure.
The problem happened just before 5am in the Woking area, blocking the main lines to and from London.
There were reports of commuters stranded on trains for up to 70 minutes and services stacked up behind one another.
Indicator boards at Waterloo, the UK’s busiest station, were filled with cancelled services.
As the morning peak began to build Network Rail advised all South Western Railway (SWR) passengers to check before they travel.
At 8.35am a South Western Railway spokesman said lines had reopened.
But commuters were warned that the knock-on effect could hit journeys home this evening because trains and crew were out of place.
Danny O’Keefe tweeted: “Just a normal day on SWR,” while Kulz@UK wrote: “Doesn’t matter how early I leave home still never get in on time.”
Waterloo was closed during August last year as part of an £800 million redevelopment of the station and major routes to and from the West.
Since then, however, there have been virtually daily delays.
Network Rail has been under fire for track and signal problems and how long it takes to restore services to normal.
Official figures revealed there were 34 million late passenger journeys on SWR during the last year. Almost one in five trains were late.
