Southern Rail: 'Britain's most delayed train service' stays true to form on the first working day of 2016

Delayed: The 7.29am service from Brighton to London Victoria was among the trains caught in delays this morning
Dominic Lipinski / PA Wire
Laura Proto4 January 2016

A morning commuter train dubbed the most delayed in Britain started the new working year by failing to arrive on time this morning.

Southern Rail's 7.29am service from Brighton London Victoria is infamously known for being late on numerous occasions.

And it lived up to its reputation this morning, arriving at Victoria six minutes later than its scheduled arrival time, as commuters across the Southern network faced delays due to signalling problems at Purley.

Last year, it was revealed the service failed to arrive on time on any of its 240 journeys in 2014.

The trains either side of the 7.29am service – at 7.14am and 7.44am – only arrived on time to its final destination one and two per cent of the time respectively.

A Govia Thameslink Railway spokesperson said: “We were frustrated and disappointed for our passengers that, while Network Rail finished its Christmas and New Year engineering work on time this morning, they then had signalling problems at Purley.

“Some of our services were delayed but Network Rail and our own staff worked quickly and effectively to firstly contain and then resolve the problem.

“No trains were more than 10 minutes late arriving at London Bridge and only two trains were between 11-30 minutes late at Victoria, with the significant majority arriving on time.

“The problem was fixed at around 09.30, with services returning to normal shortly after.”

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