Tens of thousands of commuters face a second day of major disruption following a crash between a passenger train and freight wagons at Waterloo station.
Operator South West Trains withdrew its advice to passengers not to use Waterloo today but warned there would still be further cancellations and delays.
It is expected services will be back to the already-restricted timetable, as a result of major engineering work, tomorrow.
A large number of trains are out of place due to Tuesday’s incident with delays and cancellations continuing across south-west London and to the west.
Scheduled engineering work at the UK’s busiest station has closed platforms 1-10; engineers working overnight to get the derailed passenger train back on the tracks found this more complex than expected and an additional platform remains out of use.
A Network Rail spokesman said: “Disruption is expected to continue until end of service today.”
Investigators studying yesterday’s crash, which happened when the 5.40 am to Guildford with 23 passengers and two staff members on board hit a stationary row of empty freight wagons just as it left the station, will look at two key aspects; whether the passenger train passed a signal at red or if the track points had been incorrectly set.
There were no injuries. Network Rail said it would “not be appropriate” to comment on the cause.
Ironically, the freight wagons had been “parked” deliberately to separate the large scale construction work taking place with the still in use operational side of the station to prevent accidents.
Network Rail said: “The barrier train was in place to separate the ongoing engineering works from the operational train services.”
Thousands more commuters using Liverpool Street station suffered long delays and cancellations getting into London this morning and face the same getting home again tonight.
A points failure between Manor Park and Ilford means trains having to run at reduced speed – reducing the number of services during morning and even peak times – until repairs are carried out tonight.
