Disruption between Swanley and Sole Street / Sevenoaks expected until 14:00 

Route(s) affected

Southeastern between London Victoria and Maidstone East / Gillingham (Kent) / Ashford International / Dover Priory / Ramsgate

Thameslink between London Blackfriars and Sevenoaks

Description

A fault with the signalling system between Swanley and Sole Street / Sevenoaks means that all lines are closed. As a result, trains running between these stations may be cancelled, delayed by up to 20 minutes or revised.

Disruption is expected until 14:00.

Southeastern customer advice:

An earlier power supply issue has caused a fault with the signalling system. Power has been restored, but localised faults still remaining, preventing trains from moving.

How does this affect my journey?

Trains to and from London Victoria via Swanley will be subject to delays, alterations and cancellations.

What should I do?

Allow extra time to make your journey and use Live Departures for travel updates.

You can use your ticket at no extra cost on High Speed services.

A replacement bus service will operate from 12:45 between:

• Ashford and Maidstone East

• Maidstone East and Bromley South

• Bromley South and Rochester

Alternative routes:

For details of alternative routes that may be available to complete your journey, please refer to our Alternative routes during disruption maps.

How can I stay up to date?

You can follow Southeastern on Twitter (X) @SE_Railway or follow the Southeastern WhatsApp channel.

Thameslink customer advice:

If you are travelling to or from stations between Swanley and Sevenoaks, you will need to use an alternative route and should allow up to an extra 30 minutes to complete your journey.

If you are travelling to or from Sevenoaks, your service will be diverted between Bickley and Sevenoaks via Orpington instead of running via Swanley. This diversion bypasses the affected line, but will not extend your overall journey time to or from Sevenoaks.

If you are travelling to or from Sevenoaks, your service may be diverted via Orpington, bypassing the affected area.

Stations currently not served

At present, Thameslink services are unable to call at the following stations:

• St Mary Cray

• Swanley

• Eynsford

• Shoreham

• Otford

• Bat & Ball

If you are travelling to or from any of these stations, you will need to use an alternative route to complete your journey or consider delaying your travel until later today.

Some stations on this route won't have an alternative public transport option. Thameslink 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 Thameslink on social media.

Ticket acceptance

To help you complete your journey on alternative routes you can use your tickets on the following:

• Any alternative Thameslink service to or from Sevenoaks

• Southeastern services between Sevenoaks and London

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 Thameslink app will also help you plan your journey.

Can you tell me more about the incident?

A fault with the track circuit system is affecting trains travelling in both directions on the route between Swanley and Sevenoaks.

This part of the network uses track circuits to detect the position of trains. These are electrical systems which monitor whether a train is on a section of track. They operate as part of the signalling system, which is designed to be "fail safe".

When a track circuit fails, the signalling system will interpret this as a train remaining in place, even though there may not be a train present at all, or the previous service may have long since left the area.

As a result, further trains cannot be automatically allowed onto the relevant section of track. Train drivers will be stopped by red signals on approach. They will then get verbal permission from the signaller so that they can proceed, and will run at a heavily-reduced speed as far as the next signal. This is so that the drivers will stop safely if they see anything ahead of them.

In some areas, the sections between signals can be several miles long, so this can result in delays building up. Even with shorter sections of track affected, there would still be a delay of at least a few minutes to each journey.

Track circuit faults can be caused by a number of different issues, including electronic faults or obstructions on the track. Network Rail manage the signalling system, including track circuits, and their staff will be investigating as quickly as possible.

Check before you travel:

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

For helpful advice if you need to travel on a rail replacement service, including accessibility and bicycle information, please use our Rail Replacement Services page.

You can find the pick-up and drop-off location of rail replacement services by checking station signage or by searching for your station on our Find a Station page.

Please be advised that replacement vehicles may be busier than usual, and you should allow extra time for your journey.

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.