South Coast signal failure hit summer Sunday travel

Rail services on the south coast were significantly disrupted on Sunday 23 June, leading South Western Railway to issue a rare ‘Do Not Travel’ instruction in the Southampton area.

Network Rail’s signalling centre at Eastleigh was affected by system failure in the early hours of the morning, following upgrade work.

Some components were damaged and had to be replaced.

That meant no trains could run between Eastleigh and Brockenhurst, affecting all services to Southampton, Bournemouth and Weymouth.

Services between Fareham and Southampton were also suspended.

The cancellations led to long queues on a busy summer Sunday.

The failure coincided with the Isle of Wight music festival. Four cruise ships were also in Southampton docks on a ‘turnaround’ day, leaving thousands of holidaymakers attempting to get home, many with heavy luggage, while others struggled to arrive in time for afternoon sailings.

For many passengers at Southampton Central station, the only option was to wait for a taxi.

Janice Whittington, who was trying to travel home to Manchester after a cruise holiday, said the customer service was “terrible”. She said: “We’re stuck in Southampton and we’re both in work tomorrow, so I’m not happy.”

Other passengers spoke of ordering taxis or Ubers to Basingstoke or Portsmouth in the hope of finding alternative trains.

South Western Railway told passengers that tickets that were not used on Sunday could be carried over to Monday.

A spokesperson for Network Rail Southern Region said: “After upgrades to the signalling control systems at Eastleigh Area Signalling Centre overnight, we experienced a power surge which damaged components.

“Those components needed to be replaced, the signalling control system completely rebooted and all the specialist signalling software reinstalled.

“That work has taken longer than expected.”

SWR, Southern and CrossCountry services were all halted throughout the day. Freight services from Southampton docks were also affected.

Network Rail said the signalling was restored at 2230. Although SWR was able to run nearly a full service the following morning, some trains were delayed. That was compounded by speed restrictions in the area, imposed due to high track temperatures on the warmest day of the year so far.