Horsham railway incident explained: 'Major failure'

Southern Rail reported at 4.38pm that a ‘points failure has been reported at Horsham’, adding: “We are expecting trains will need to be terminated before they get to the area, or diverted via alternative routes, if possible.”

Southern said trains between Southampton Central, Portsmouth or Bognor Regis and London Victoria were likely to be diverted, running non-stop between Barnham / Ford and Three Bridges.

Trains between Horsham and London Victoria (via Sutton) have only been able to run between Dorking and London Victoria. Warnham, Ockley and Holmwood were not in served in either direction.

Explaining the issue, a Southern spokesperson said: “Part of the signalling control system has suffered a major failure, which automatically stops several sets of points being used until the fault is resolved.

“Response staff are en-route to site, but are not expected until 5.15pm at the earliest.”

As of 17.35, Southern said response staff were on site, adding: “At the moment the fault is expected to be fixed soon. When this is done, we'll work to get our trains and crews back in the right places as quickly as possible.”

By 6.10pm, the fault had been fixed and Southern said staff ‘are now working hard to get back to our timetable’.

"You may need to leave up to 30-45 minutes of extra time for your journey, but we'll be reducing the delays wherever we can,” a spokesperson said.

"Some late-running trains may not stop at all the usual stations, so please continue to check live journey planners at as you may need to change trains to reach your destination.”