District line services to and from Wimbledon have been branded as ‘not good enough’ by local MPs, with nearly 600 announcements of delays and suspensions occurring in three months. Transport for London (TfL) has published data regarding minor and severe delays, as well as suspensions, for the branch from September to the end of November last year.
The data, revealed in a response to a Freedom of Information request, relates to messages that affected either the whole District line or specifically the Wimbledon branch during the three month period. TfL also noted in their response that multiple service status messages could relate to the same cause of disruption, with updated messages constituting a separate entry within the data.
Fleur Anderson, Labour MP for Putney, Roehampton, Southfields and Wandsworth Town, wrote an open letter to Network Rail and TfL on October 1 last year, stating that her constituents were ‘extremely frustrated’ by severe levels of disruption on the District line. She said that signal failures and delays appeared to regularly affect the branch as often as once a month.
Mr Kohler MP also said incorrect information was sometimes displayed on departure board at Wimbledon station
(Image: Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
Regarding the published data, Ms Anderson MP told MyLondon: “The District Line disruption last year was dreadful and resulted in hours being added to journeys for many people. I have been working hard to get answers for residents as to why the District line has been letting us down in Putney and Southfields. The service has simply not been good enough and commuters have had enough.”
The Labour MP said that she held a meeting with Network Rail and TfL after the line was suspended for two weeks and that she was told the suspension was due to an intermittent fault which had since been fixed. She said she was still unhappy about the lack of information at stations on such issues and would continue to advocate for residents who were reliant on the line performing well.
The Lib Dems’ Paul Kohler, MP for Wimbledon, also wrote a letter regarding the disruption which he sent to TfL Commissioner Andy Lord on October 2. He told MyLondon that the data represented a particularly bad period of suspensions and delays on the Wimbledon branch of the service.
He said: “These recurring service issues on the branch were highly disruptive, compounded by a lack of communication from TfL, further inconveniencing District line users by failing to give them timely updates so they could make alternative travel arrangements. While I’m relieved these specific signalling issues have been resolved and services seem to be running mostly as scheduled, disruption on this Tube line has been a longstanding issue, which is little surprise given that some of the infrastructure is over 130 years old.”
The MP claimed that outdated technology for the service had caused other issues, such as incorrect information being displayed on departure boards at Wimbledon and other stations along the line. A TfL spokesperson told MyLondon that customer information improvements would be delivered as part of a wider overhaul programme on the District line.
TfL said it was working closely with Network Rail to improve the service for customers
(Image: Martin Keene/PA Wire)
They said: “We are working closely with Network Rail, with whom we jointly operate the infrastructure between Wimbledon and East Putney, to improve the service for customers. We are doing this by fixing faults more quickly, removing track defects and developing a programme of work to improve reliability. We are also carrying out a joint programme of maintenance activities over the coming months to renew this part of the network to help improve reliability and reduce the number of unplanned disruptions.”
A Network Rail spokesperson told MyLondon: “We’re sorry to any passengers whose journeys were disrupted on the District line between East Putney and Wimbledon between the start of September and the end of November as a result of a number of track circuit failures at Southfields. Network Rail is responsible for the infrastructure on the District line south of East Putney towards Wimbledon.”
They added: “The track circuit is the equipment that tells signallers where trains are on the network, part of the wider signalling system, so when there is a failure, it means we are unable to run trains through this stretch of track as planned as it automatically turns our signals (traffic lights) red until the fault has been fixed.”
The spokesperson said the fault throughout the three months was complex, meaning it took time to thoroughly investigate and fix. They said engineers replaced a damaged cable and the problem had been rectified.
They said: “We’d like to thank passengers for their patience and understanding during this time. and we continue to work closely with Transport for London to ensure passengers enjoy safe and reliable journeys.”
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