Passengers on the c2c network faced significant delays on Monday 20 October following two separate incidents affecting services in Essex. At around 07:00, a track circuit failure in the Westcliff area caused trains to run at reduced speed, resulting in knock-on delays in both directions. Replacement arrangements included acceptance of c2c tickets on First Bus services and additional buses between Leigh on Sea and Shoeburyness. Normal services resumed at approximately 15:00 after Network Rail engineers addressed the fault.

Later in the afternoon, at 16:10, a lorry collided with a bridge in the Upminster Bridge area. Trains were again required to operate at reduced speed until the bridge could be assessed for safety, causing further cancellations and delays. During this period, c2c tickets were accepted on Greater Anglia services between Liverpool Street and Southend Victoria. By 16:30, Network Rail had declared the bridge safe, but disruptions persisted into the evening peak.

Rob Mullen, c2c Managing Director, and Katie Frost, Route Director for Network Rail Anglia, said: “We apologise for the disruption experienced on c2c Railway services yesterday. The issues were due to a signalling system fault in the Southend area, which was subsequently compounded by a vehicle colliding with a bridge at Upminster.

“Our signalling engineers worked as quickly as possible to fix the fault on the line near Southend, while we had to inspect the bridge at Upminster to check it was safe for train services to start running at normal speed again. We know that many passengers were delayed while we worked together to fix the issues and we’d like to thank everyone for bearing with us.”

Image: c2c