Major West Sussex railway disruption explained

Southern Rail reported shortly after 11am that services were being disrupted between Worthing and Angmering, ‘due to a problem currently under investigation’.

A spokesperson added: “The line towards Littlehampton and Barnham is currently blocked whilst this is investigated further.”

The incident was initially thought to be a ‘problem with the electricity supply’ before damage was discovered to ‘the shoe gear’ of a train. The electric third rail was also damaged as a result.

“The shoe gear is what connects the train to the electrical third rail, where the train draws it's power from,” a Southern told its followers on X (formerly Twitter).

"The line towards Littlehampton, Barnham, Bognor Regis and Portsmouth will remain blocked whilst our fleet team contact the driver.”

Passengers were advised ‘to delay travel until later today’ when lines have reopened.

A spokesperson added: “If you do travel now, your journey time will be extended and you may need to use an alternative route.

“Direct services that run between London Victoria and Littlehampton will divert via Horsham and not call at stations between Gatwick Airport and Littlehampton.

“Services that run between Brighton and Portsmouth / Southampton may terminate and restart their journey earlier.”

The broken train was still unable to move at 12.30pm, with the line between Worthing and Barnham remaining blocked. Train engineers were on site and ‘working to fix this as soon as possible’.

Services were still able to run as far as Worthing from the Brighton direction but there wore no services between Worthing and Barnham.

Ticket acceptance was put in place on reasonable bus routes, whilst the incident was ongoing.

At 2.10pm, Southern said the repair ‘is now complete’, adding: “The line will be reopening very shortly.

“Our control teams will then start to reinstate the train service however this will take some time.”

In a further update at 2.30pm, Southern wrote: ”All lines have now reopened. Services remain disrupted while we work to return to our regular schedule.”