Railway delays in West Sussex amid 'urgent repairs to the track'

Southern Rail reported at 11.45am that ‘urgent repairs to the track are taking place in the Littlehampton area’.

A spokesperson added: “A line block will be in place until 1pm, during this time no services will be able to run to or from Littlehampton.

"Please allow extra time to complete your journey if you are travelling to or from Littlehampton. We would advise delaying travel until lines have reopened at 1pm.

“If you cannot delay travel, you will need to use an alternative route to complete your journey.”

Services terminated and restarted at different stations to normal, for instance Barnham.

National Rail said passengers could use valid tickets on Stagecoach routes 500 & 700 and alternative Southern services. There will be no rail replacement buses running during this time.

In an update at 1.20pm, a Southern spokesperson said: “Work has been carried out and the issue rectified. The line to and from Littlehampton has now reopened and services will resume to and from the station.”

Explaining the incident, a National Rail spokesperson said: “During overnight engineering work, a set of points (moveable sections of track that allow us to move trains from one line to another) in the Littlehampton area were replaced.

"Unfortunately, the points failed the testing that was carried out after their installation and as such are currently unusable.

“These allow Southern to use a full range of platforms at the station, and although Southern have been able to run normally this morning they have only been able to use two out of our usual four platforms.

“Adjustments and a fix need to be carried out but this will require a line block and the power to be switched off. Work is now under way to do this.”