I do realise the seriousness of this situation, and sadly many will likely miss their flights. But I did laugh at the Bluebell Railway suggestion. Imagine you've just arrived from far-away lands, needing London, and part of your journey was behind a steam locomotive. You'd recount your trip for many dinner parties hereafter.
I think the reps are overwhelmed. I saw Southern twitter suggest someone takes an SWR train to Epsom then a Southern train to Horsham. Those don't run on Sundays.
This is significant disruption to thousands of people by now they should have put ticket acceptance in place and got briefings out to all staff including SE/SWR of the situation to facilitate all reasonable support for passengers
Ah, no wonder I couldn't see the acceptance on the route between Portsmouth/Havant and Waterloo with SWR, as they listed it against the wrong operator. So the ticket I bought was superfluous. Best take a picture of that when I submit a request for a refund of the ticket between Havant and Waterloo, to help explain the confusion.
Would this work? Isn't the entire bridge suspect?
Tomorrow will be easier than today. The slow/Redhill lines will be open if that's any use. They'll also have Redhill-Tonbridge, and the North Downs Line. No easy diversion, but it won't be as bad as now. The whole network is practically shut....
I thought its all line shuts until further notice, including the Redhill lines until its safe to reopen? Which includes closing all lines tomorrow until the bridge is repaired, which could be tonight if they have the ability, or sometime next week if they have to wait for the part.
Do we actually know that the slow lines in the Purley area will be open if the offending issue is at the point when the lines are all together?
Yes, but today the slow lines were shut anyway due to planned engineering works. Maybe they will be able to run trains from Brighton to Redhill, to pick up services to London via Dorking or Tonbridge.
Not sure. But my point is that tomorrow there is more slack in the system with more trains around and more lines open.
Hm, my main concern is finding the part to repair the bridge, however long it takes to get that part, is how long it takes to reopen the line, and if the bridge is more damaged than it appears... lord help the BML users.
Let's hope they find the part to repair the bridge tonight, or else its going to be a big compensation bill.
Just watched it fly through Holmwood. 12 car but not particularly busy. Unfortunately lost quite a bit of time being stuck behind 2I36, not helped by being routed through the loop at Dorking.
Yes, well that demonstrates the dominance of the railway in the Gatwick Airport transport market, and the risk of a single point of failure.
Stranded stock. Cannot get to a depot.
Well at least it’s not load bearing. Is that those old fibre packing pads being used to fill the gap between the metalwork and the brickwork?
Something has moved, their does seem to be a big gap in the bridge structure where the hole is.
No idea, all I know is, there should not be a missing bit of bridge under the ballast, because clearly there is nothing holding that section of ballast up.
Switched to Line Blocked / Blocked to Electric Traction. Presumably for the inspection?
BTET is block to electric traction so presumably they have discharged the traction current so pway can attend?