Overrunning engineering works brought fresh misery to commuters using Britain’s busiest rail station on the day it was supposed to open for business as normal following major works.
Rail users reported services into London Waterloo being delayed or cancelled altogether, as nearly a month’s worth of disruption caused by the transport hub’s £800 million overhaul lurched into Tuesday.
Commuters at Waterloo Station in London on Tuesday morning (Tess De La Mare/PA)
Stations including Queenstown Road, Earlsfield and Norbiton were also closed.
A Network Rail spokesman said: “The upgrades taking place at Waterloo station are some of the biggest and most complex engineering projects ever undertaken on the railway.
“We are entering the final stages of that programme and are preparing the railway and station for trains and passengers.
“During the process of testing the complex signalling, we identified an issue in this safety-critical system which we are working to resolve.
“This will take some time to fix and a small number of early passenger trains may be delayed as a result.
“We are working hard to minimise delays to passengers, but safely is our number one priority.”
Network Rail said it expected disruption to be resolved by noon.