Rail passengers have been urged to avoid London Waterloo after major signalling problems, with disruption expected until the end of the day.
South Western Railway (SWR) has issued the warning for customers attempting to travel to and from the station, which is the busiest in Britain.
A significantly reduced service is operating on a very limited number of lines.
Fourteen out of its 24 platforms are currently closed, the rail firm said.
Two services per hour are running between Reading and London, while other stations including Queenstown Road and Hampton Court have no service at all.
Demand has outstripped supply at the rail information desk all morning, overrun by customers unable to travel as fresh cancellations have been announced.
The number of people arriving with suitcases suggests most remain unaware of the disruption.
Network Rail, which is responsible for signalling, confirmed there had been a “major power failure” to equipment.
It tweeted: “Our team is on site tracing the fault, which occurred before 04:00, but even if it is fixed soon disruption is likely across the network for some time.”
Emma, from Southampton, told the BBC she was planning a day trip to London to visit the Science and Natural History museums with her young daughter but, “everything has been cancelled and we can only get to London if we were willing to do a three hour detour.”
The trip had already been postponed once as a result of train strikes.
Commuters are also facing difficulty getting to work. Martin Benko said: “I have a presentation in two hours,” and the signal failure at Waterloo would add “two to three hours minimum” to his journey.
Peter Williams, SWR’s customer and commercial director, said: “We are very sorry for the disruption this morning.
“Due to a major signalling problem, which is still under investigation, we are advising customers not to attempt to travel to or from London Waterloo this morning.
“While the problem is in the Waterloo area we do expect the wider network to be affected as trains and their crews will be displaced.”
London Waterloo is the busiest railway station in Britain with 41.4 million passengers travelling through every year.
Source – BBC News
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