Commuters suffer London train delays as new rail timetable arrives

Commuters were hit with their first batch of disruption into London this morning on the same day nationwide timetables were overhauled.

Read more: Commuters urged to plan travel as new rail timetable comes into force

Speed restrictions were put into place at Wimbledon due to a faulty track, forcing trains to terminate at Basingstoke, where passengers then had to change to catch overcrowded services into London.

National Rail warned that fewer trains would be running throughout out the day and that some trains could be cancelled or changed. The disruption is expected to continue until the end of the day, with engineers at Network Rail unable to fix the track until this evening.

#Wimbledon – A speed restriction over defective track at Wimbledon means a reduced number of lines are available through the station. Disruption is expected to continue for the rest of today.

— National Rail (@nationalrailenq) May 20, 2019

The disruption arrives on the first day that 1,000 extra services have been added per week to the timetable, with extra stops and longer trains.

The train firms that were caught up in last year's chaos – in which thousands of services were cancelled, delayed and overcrowded – said they had learned the lessons from last year's timetable shakeup.

Read more: Train operator GTR hit with £5m fine over May's timetable chaos

They said that extra staff have been provided to support passengers and monitor performance, while Network Rail, which owns Britain's rail infrastructure, has rapid response teams on standby to deal with any track issues.