Amended late night Great Northern and Thameslink services between Hitchin and Peterborough today  

Route(s) affected

Between Hitchin and Peterborough

Description

Urgent repairs to the track are taking place between Hitchin and Peterborough tonight.

As a result, some Great Northern and Thameslink late night services will be cancelled.

Disruption is expected until 04:00 Tuesday 18 August.

Customer advice:

Network Rail will be taking an additional possession between Hitchin and Peterborough, closing the line overnight. This means some late night services will be cancelled or terminate and restart short of their destinations.

If you are travelling to or from Peterborough tonight, you are strongly advised to travel earlier if possible, as late-night services will not run.

Currently the following services are affected:

• 22:25 Horsham to Peterborough: Will be cancelled throughout

• 23:11 Horsham to Peterborough: Will terminate early at Finsbury Park

• 01:36 London Kings Cross to Peterborough: Will be cancelled throughout

Great Northern and Thameslink are working with transport suppliers to source rail replacement buses for the cancelled services so you can complete your journey. We will update this advice once replacement transport is confirmed.

Planning your journey:

You can check train departures from your station here:

- Thameslink live departure boards

- Great Northern live departure boards

You can view live maps of our network here:

- Thameslink live route map

- Great Northern live route map

You can also see our alternative route guides here:

- Thameslink alternative route guide

- Great Northern alternative route guide

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

The Great Northern and Thameslink apps will also help you plan your journey.

Can you tell me more about the incident?

Network Rail is taking an additional, short-notice possession of the railway between Hitchin and Peterborough tonight to carry out urgent engineering work.

A "possession" means that Network Rail temporarily takes full control of a stretch of track and stops all standard train operations. This creates a safe working environment so that track teams, maintenance engineers, and heavy rail machinery can access the railway lines, overhead power cables, and signalling systems safely.

While regular maintenance is usually planned months in advance, short-notice work like this is sometimes required to address safety-critical repairs or complete urgent infrastructure upgrades before the next day's full timetable resumes. Network Rail schedules these possessions during the late evening and overnight hours when fewer passenger trains are operating to keep daytime disruption to a minimum.

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.