Disruption between Horsham and Barnham expected until 19:00 

Route(s) affected

Between London Victoria and Bognor Regis / Portsmouth Harbour

Description

A points failure between Horsham and Barnham means that all lines are blocked. As a result, trains running between these stations may be delayed or diverted.

Disruption is expected until 19:00.

Customer advice:

If you are travelling between Horsham and Barnham, you are advised to delay travelling until later this evening if possible.

No trains are currently running directly between Horsham and Barnham while Southern await Network Rail engineers attending to a points failure in the Billingshurst area.

Services scheduled to run between Horsham and Barnham in both directions will be diverted between Three Bridges and Ford via Hove and Worthing, extending overall journey times by at least 15 minutes.

As a result of this diversion, Southern services will be unable to call at the following stations:

• Crawley (Alternative Thameslink services run to / from this station)

• Horsham (Alternative Thameslink services run to / from this station)

• Christ's Hospital

• Billingshurst

• Pulborough

• Amberley

• Arundel

Ticket Acceptance

To help you complete your journey you can use your ticket on any of the following at no extra cost to yourself

• Southern between London and Portsmouth Harbour on any alternative service

• Thameslink between London and Horsham

Unfortunately, stations between Horsham and Ford won't have an alternative public transport option. Southern will do their best to provide alternative road transport, but there may be a long wait. Please speak to station staff, where available. If there are no staff, you can use the emergency button on the station help point instead, or speak to Southern on social media

Planning your journey:

You can use live departure boards, a live map of the network and the alternative route guide to help you.

If you're travelling in the London area, you can plan journeys on alternative routes by using the TfL Journey Planner.

The Southern app will also help you plan your journey.

Can you tell me more about the incident?

A points failure has been reported, and this is preventing trains from travelling on this route.

Points are moveable sections of track which can send trains onto different routes at junctions. These are part of the signalling system, generally managed by Network Rail.

Points can stop moving correctly for a number of reasons. For example, there may be an obstruction in the moving parts, or the electronic control systems may have developed a fault.

There are various backup systems which allow signallers to try to "set" the points, and in some cases, the points may be available for trains in one of the directions they serve, but not another. However, with more severe failures like this one, the route is blocked entirely.

Network Rail have sent their specialist Signalling & Telecoms teams to site as a priority, and they will set up a safe method of working on the track. As soon as it's safe to go on the line, they will diagnose the fault and find any quick solutions to resolve it.

Whilst this is being done, Southern will be monitoring progress closely. At times, replacement parts may be needed, or specialist advice from suppliers, which is why some points failures take longer to resolve than others.

Check before you travel:

You can check your journey using the National Rail Enquiries real-time Journey Planner.

Compensation:

You may be entitled to compensation if you experience a delay in completing your journey today. Please keep your train ticket and make a note of your journey, as both will be required to support any claim.