London Paddington chaos as all trains cancelled in ‘complete shutdown’
Written by News on 07/07/2017
All trains from London Paddington were earlier cancelled – as signal failures left commuters stranded for a second day in a row.
The disruption started just before 4.30pm on Thursday, with all lines suspended. Around 9.30pm "a very limited service" started operating, Network Rail said.
Great Western Railway runs most of the services from Paddington and earlier said every line between London and Slough, Berkshire, was blocked.
The issue caused chaos for passengers heading to Heathrow. No trains were able to travel to or from the airport, with the Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect both suspended.
Travellers tweeted photographs of departure boards that were completely empty, and described an "absolute farce" and "complete shutdown" at the station.
There were similar problems caused by a signalling failure at London Paddington on Wednesday evening.
Among those at the station was Labour MP Luke Pollard, who described the situation as a "shambles" and tweeted "we need a better railway".
Services to Swindon, Bristol and South Wales, which all run from Paddington, were affected by the problems.
Network Rail and GWR advised passengers to consult the GWR website for information about refunds or compensation.
"Network Rail and GWR would like to apologise to customers as a signal failure means we are not currently able to run trains into and out of London Paddington," a statement said.
"Network Rail has teams on the ground working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, however significant delays are expected to continue."
(c) Sky News 2017: London Paddington chaos as all trains cancelled in ‘complete shutdown’
