Commuter chaos: Trains and buses are cancelled due to staff shortages over Covid
Passengers were hit with disruption today (Tuesday 4 January), as bus and rail companies cancelled services across the South East due to staff shortages.
Rail services to and from the South Coast were among the most impacted, after Southern Rail announced it would not offer any services to London Victoria until Monday 10 of January.
The company said it would be operating a 'reduced timetable' until further notice to ensure that it could run 'as reliable a service as possible' due to the ongoing impact of coronavirus isolation and sickness.
Passengers are advised to travel to London Bridge, where the majority of the companies trains would terminate.
What advice has Southern offered to passengers?
A reduced service will run
A reduced service will run
There will be no Southern or Gatwick Express services at London Victoria, Battersea Park, Clapham Junction or Wandsworth Common until Monday 10 January.
The times of trains on all routes will be changed and, on many routes, services will be reduced.
There will be no Southern services at London Victoria, Battersea Park, Clapham Junction or Wandsworth Common.
Services on the following routes will be diverted north of East Croydon to London Bridge:
Ore – Hastings – Eastbourne – London
Littlehampton – Hove – London
Southampton/Portsmouth Harbour/Bognor Regis – Horsham – London
East Grinstead – London
Horsham – Dorking – Epsom – London
Brighton – Gatwick Airport – London (only Thameslink trains will run)
In addition, Southern Metro services via Streatham Common/Streatham Hill that normally run to/from London Victoria will terminate at/start from Balham.
There will be no direct service between Mitcham Junction and Balham. Customers will need to travel via Streatham and Streatham Common.
Alternative routes
Alternative routes
Travel to/from London Victoria or other Central London destinations:
Travel via London Bridge (or London Blackfriars on Thameslink services) and use TfL buses or the Tube to complete your journey.
The easiest route to and from London Victoria is via London Blackfriars and the Circle and District Line.
Thameslink Sutton and Wimbledon services also call at Herne Hill, where direct Southeastern services to/from London Victoria are available.
Travel to/from Battersea Park:
Use the nearby Queenstown Road station for travel to Clapham Junction and London Waterloo. Please use TfL buses to travel between Battersea Park and London Victoria.
Travel to/from Clapham Junction:
Travel via London Bridge and use Southeastern services between London Bridge and London Waterloo East and South Western Railway services between London Waterloo and Clapham Junction to complete your journey.
You may also use Tramlink services between East Croydon, West Croydon, Mitcham Junction and Wimbledon (where South Western Railway connections to/from Clapham Junction are available).
Other amendments to services
Other amendments to services
Stopping services between East Croydon and London Bridge via Forest Hill:
There will be no all-stations Southern service on this route.
Passengers are advised to use London Overground services which will serve all stations between West Croydon, Norwood Junction and New Cross Gate.
Southern Mainline and Thameslink services between East Croydon and London Bridge will continue to call at Norwood Junction and additional stops at New Cross Gate will also be made. These additional stops will be advertised in journey planners by mid-day on the day before operation.
Sutton to London via Carshalton Beeches:
There will be no direct service to central London on this route. Passengers are advised to change at Norwood Junction and use alternative Southern and Thameslink services to travel between Norwood Junction and London Bridge
Tonbridge to Redhill and Reigate to Central London:
An hourly service will operate between Reigate, Redhill and Tonbridge calling at all stations. Passengers are advised to change at Redhill for connecting services to/from London Bridge.
Caterham and Tattenham Corner to London Bridge:
Services will operate between Tattenham Corner / Caterham and London Bridge via Tulse Hill. Quicker journeys will be possible by changing trains at East Croydon and using direct services to / from London Bridge
Uckfield to London Bridge:
Services will run between Uckfield and East Croydon only. Passengers are advised to use alternative Southern/Thameslink services to travel between East Croydon and London Bridge.
Beckenham Junction to London Bridge via Crystal Palace:
A service of two trains per hour has been reintroduced on this route.
All other routes:
Trains will operate at different times, and in some cases to a reduced timetable.
Paul's Chalcraft's journey to Clapham Junction from Brighton is taking an additional half an hour because of the suspension of London Victoria services.
"So I'm heading to Clapham Junction today from Brighton area, and we have got to change at East Croydon station and get a tram to Wimbledon before coming back to Clapham Junction.
"I work in an industry where we are suffering similar staff shortages so I get it, but it feels if the railways were run better in the first place then they could work around it much better than they are."
Transport Focus, the independent watchdog for transport users, is calling on Rail operators to give quality information to passengers as quickly as possible during this period of disruption.
Anthony Smith, Chief Executive at Transport Focus, said operators need to be flexible and allow passengers to travel when they can and drop ticket restrictions.
"I think we are bound to see more delays and cancellations, and so train companies have got to keep very focused on getting good quality communication to passengers as quickly as possible.
"Having staff around at big stations who can help out and offer assurance. And being flexible... Let people travel when they can, forget ticket restrictions, just get home, get them to college or wherever."
Bus passengers in Kent and East Sussex also faced significant disruption this morning, after operator, Stagecoach, was forced to cancel many of its services due to staffing issues.
Commuters in Dover, Folkestone, Canterbury and Hastings were among those affected by the cancellations.
The company apologised on its social media accounts for the disruption, saying the cancellations were due to 'driver sickness'.
The operator had previously warned of disruption in to its routes across the South East in September, when in a statement on its website it blamed a 'national shortage of qualified bus drivers'.
In the statement on its website Stagecoach said:
"We’re doing all we can to keep services running whilst we recruit more people. The majority of bus services are running normally, but where we do have to cancel a bus, we are providing live updates on our Twitter feed @StagecoachSE."
Stagecoach also runs bus services in Hampshire, and announced last week that it would be forced to amend the timetables of some of its buses in Winchester.
From the 10th of January services in the city will be reduced, which the company says will enable it to 'continue to deliver services as reliably as possible during the current very challenging conditions'.
Southeastern, which was recently re-nationalised, was not without its own problems this morning.
A signal failure in Slade Green meant the line through the stations towards Dartford was blocked, disrupting journeys for passengers from Kent.
This was further compounded when a set of points failed in Lewisham, which had only recently been installed. This impacted Southeastern mainline services into the capital.
Network Rail apologised for the disruption, saying in a tweet that it had sent technicians to Lewisham to fix a new set of points which "worked fine all night in testing and of course has gone wrong now".
Southeastern, unlike many other operators, was not operating a reduced timetable this morning.
However, the operator has warned that from Monday the 10th of January it will have to reduce services due to "an increasing number of colleagues affected by Covid".
The company will be reducing the timetable by 7% in response, which it also says will match a drop in passenger numbers caused by the Governments work from home advice.
Passengers are being advised to check their journey the day before and on the day of travel.
Passengers in Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire and Surrey have also been warned of disruption to rail services, as South Western Railway said it may have to make 'short notice alterations' to services due to 'colleague absence'.
The company, which runs Metro and Long-distance services in the South and South West, will be introducing a new timetable from January 17th so it can 'improve reliability for customers'.
In a statement on the company's website it said:
"The onset of the Omicron variant has led to a shortage of staff across our business – from drivers and guards to engineers and controllers. These staff shortages have inevitably had a significant impact on our services, leading to short term cancellations.
"As a result, we will be introducing a new, consolidated timetable from Monday 17 January 2022. Our focus is on producing a timetable that is deliverable, so that we improve reliability for our customers, and caters to key workers, school pupils and those who cannot work from home. We will be publishing further details on our new timetable shortly.
"From the beginning of January through to the introduction of the new timetable on 17 January, our services will still be subject to short notice cancellations. Please check to see if your planned train is running as close to your time of travel as possible. Journey planners are currently up to date, up to and including Sunday 9th January."
Elsewhere Go-Ahead Group, which used to run the Southeastern franchise under Govia, a joint venture between Go-Ahead Group (65%) and Keolis (35%), was forced to suspend share trading today.
The company, which also runs buses on the South Coast and the Thames Valley, said shares were suspended to give its auditor more time to finalise delayed full-year results in the wake of the Southeastern franchise scandal.
Govia was stripped of the operation in October last year, with the Government seizing control of the rail contract after the firm admitted to serious errors and failures in the way it ran Southeastern.
The firm failed to declare more than £25 million of historic taxpayer funding which should have been returned.
Go-Ahead said in December that it expected the Department for Transport to impose a penalty on the group, although it said the full amount was unclear at the time.
Shares were suspended on Tuesday at 667p.