Posted on behalf of our colleagues at Network Rail High Speed (who maintain the high speed railway but aren't on Twitter!): We’re sorry for the disruption experienced by
@Se_Railway passengers on High Speed services yesterday and today. /1
At around 0930 on Tuesday, circuit breakers in the power supply to the railway around Ebbsfleet opened, much as they do in your house when there is a problem, and cut the electricity supply to trains. /2
Trains were brought carefully to a stand by the system, and powered down. We closed the breakers and as the trains all powered up we discovered the overhead wire, which carries electricity to trains, had broken in one location. /3
This blocked the London-bound line and stranded a train underneath the broken wire. We worked with
@Se_Railway to bring another train alongside and evacuate trapped passengers (see pic)./4
Because we still had one line open between Stratford and Ebbsfleet, we were able to run a much-reduced service on that line. /5
Repairing the overhead wire and moving the train from the “dead” section had to wait until overnight when the next-door line was finally closed and it was safe to access the railway. /6
We did the repairs and moved the train that night, but unfortunately an engineering train doing the work then broke down which took some time to repair and meant a delay to reopening the railway this morning. /7
We’re sorry this all took so long, and on such a usually reliable part of the railway. We are working with
@Se_Railway to investigate what went wrong and we hope you will accept our apologies for what were two very difficult days for you. Ends.
www.southeasternrailway.co.uk
