Media centre

Monday 30 Jan 2017

Passengers thanked for their patience as railway reopens after Lewisham derailment

Region & Route:

Passengers have been thanked for their patience after Network Rail engineers worked round the clock for six days to rebuild a stretch of railway damaged in a derailment near Lewisham.

More than 50 metres of line was damaged by a derailed freight train last Tuesday morning, leading to a major effort from across the railway industry to rebuild the track and keep trains running.

Trains began running as normal in the early hours of Monday morning.

Network Rail engineers and contractors moved the two derailed wagons, shifted 30 tonnes of spilled sand manually with shovels, relaid more than 50 metres of track and fitted a new set of bespoke points, including a crucial component built at very short notice by London Underground at its in-house factory near Earl’s Court.

Points, which allow trains to move from one set of tracks to another, are all unique and need to be built to fit each location.

Network Rail’s chief operating officer Andy Derbyshire said: “It has been a difficult week for passengers on our railway and I would like to personally thank everyone for their patience while we repaired the line.

“Our teams worked around the clock to rebuild the damaged section so we could make sure commuter trains were able to run as normal from today.

“I would also like to thank London Underground for their efforts in building us a crossing, without which we could not have opened the railway, and sending their response team. Southeastern worked very hard to rewrite their timetables with only half the number of tracks they need and our staff and our contractors worked round the clock to rebuild this railway.”

Southeastern is offering Delay Repay compensation – at double the normal value - to passengers who were delayed by 30 minutes or more, as a result of the freight train derailment.

David Statham, Managing Director for Southeastern, said: “The freight train derailment led to a very difficult week for a large number of our passengers and I would like to thank them for bearing with us. We understand how frustrating this was for passengers and I am very glad that this is now  resolved and we have been able to run a full service from this Monday morning.

“If passengers were delayed for 30 minutes or more we would ask them to please claim Delay Repay compensation from us, which they can do on our website.”

The incident occurred at around 5.30am on Tuesday between Hither Green and Lewisham stations with the train in question consisting of a locomotive hauling a 1km-long train of 18 wagons filled with sand.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch is investigating the incident.