Rail passengers endured lengthy delays due to a record number of signalling faults last year. Official figures show there were almost 57,000 incidents – more than 1,000 every week. And the signal failures caused almost 23,000 hours of hold-ups, triggering payouts to customers running into millions of pounds.
Network Rail, which has responsibility for Britain’s tracks, said problems last year meant 192,647 trains were delayed or cancelled. When a signal gets stuck and halts a service it can have a domino effect on trains behind. The figures released following a Freedom of Information Act request show on average each signalling problem caused delays of around 25 minutes.
The worst incident took place near Brockenhurst station, in Hampshire. It was responsible for delays amounting to 7,340 minutes.
In the past five years there have been a total of 252,739 recorded signal breakdowns, leading to delays of 5.4 million minutes. And the number of signal incidents increased 33% from 42,591 in 2020, when railway services were reduced due to the pandemic, to 56,884 last year.
A fortnight ago services between Sussex and London Bridge on the Uckfield line were crippled by a signalling problem. Southern, which operates the services, said it had to hunt through 19 miles of cables to finally locate the fault. It was reported on a Friday and services did not get back to normal again until the Tuesday.
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “There were around 7.4 million train services last year. Of these, only around 2.6% were affected by signal failures.
“But we know that’s not good enough. Passengers rightly expect a reliable railway and we’re committed to delivering just that. Signal failures cause real disruption and we’re working hard to reduce them – through investment, better maintenance and smarter technology.”