Media centre

Saturday 1 Feb 2020

Update: Derailment at Eastleigh

Region & Route:

Southern: Wessex

Following the derailment at Eastleigh station repairs continue on site as Network Rail engineers work around the clock to reopen the stretch of railway damaged after six 52 tonne wagons came off the track.

The majority of services are still expected to begin running through the station from the early hours of Monday morning.  Work required to reinstate the infrastructure is significant, however the installation of temporary track enables the railway to be reopened while engineers plan and deliver the full repair.  This interim solution means that some points will not be in place to enable all services to call at Eastleigh station until further notice. Network Rail apologises for the ongoing changes to services while the necessary repair work is carried out and passengers are advised to check with www.southwesternrailway.com before travelling.

Service information from South Western Railway

1. Any train that heads towards Southampton from the Basingstoke direction will not be able to call at Eastleigh. Trains will be able to call at Eastleigh in the London bound direction from Southampton ONLY. Customers travelling to Eastleigh from the London / Basingstoke / Winchester direction will need to travel on a Portsmouth Harbour / Portsmouth and Southsea via Basingstoke service or alternatively to Southampton Airport Parkway and return back on a northbound service. This may entail an approx. 30 minute maximum wait at Southampton Airport Parkway but should be an average of 5-10 minutes.
   1. Trains from Romsey to Salisbury via Chandlers Ford will be unable to call at Eastleigh
   2. Services from Waterloo to Poole will be unable to call at Eastleigh
2. There will be some additional peak time services that will also be unable to call at Eastleigh or may have to be cancelled throughout.

Background

• 160 metres of track has been removed and replaced.
• Work is underway to reinstate signalling and conductor rail infrastructure.
• Repair work will be followed by an extensive period of testing to ensure the infrastructure is working correctly and safely.
• An independent RAIB investigation into what happened is ongoing, plus an internal review.  Information will be shared at a later date.