Thousands of commuters caught up in Thursday evening’s rail chaos out of London Waterloo were told they could book their own taxis home and claim the fare back, with journeys covered as far afield as Exeter St Davids — roughly 170 miles from the capital.
South Western Railway sent the message to passengers on Thursday night as a police incident between Woking and Brookwood brought all lines through the area to a standstill. The operator said its customers were “authorised to book their own taxi” for travel between London Waterloo and Woking, Guildford, Alton, Basingstoke, Salisbury, Southampton Central, Bournemouth, Exeter St Davids and Weymouth.
Exeter St Davids, in Devon, is the farthest of the nine destinations named — a journey of around 170 miles from Waterloo, well beyond the usual commuter belt.
Anyone who took up the offer and wants their money back must go through the operator’s claims process. SWR said passengers would need to provide their full contact details, the time and date of the journey, the stations they travelled to and from, a description of the series of events that took place, and copies of both their train tickets and their taxi receipt.
Claims must be submitted within 28 days of travel. Passengers using a smartcard were told to make sure they had correctly tapped in and tapped out where applicable.
Lines reopened in the early hours
National Rail confirmed the incident was over in the early hours of Friday. In an update at 3.58am, it said: “Disruption following the police dealing with an incident between Woking and Brookwood has now ended.”
The incident was first reported at 4.28pm on Thursday, when all lines between Woking and Brookwood were closed. As our earlier live coverage reported, delays reached up to two hours as the evening rush hour unravelled.
Waterloo, Britain’s busiest railway station, became so crowded on Thursday evening that station managers were forced to close it. Passengers described being held on trains for hours with little information about when they might move.
One commuter wrote that they had been “stuck on train for 4 hours, still at Waterloo” and needed to get to Gillingham in Dorset. Another asked the operator what was recommended “for someone who’s had 2 trains cancelled and now been on the train at Waterloo without moving for 45 minutes while we wait for a driver”. A third said they had been at Waterloo since 4.30pm trying to reach Eastleigh via Basingstoke, adding there had been “so much misinformation”.
Replacement buses laid on
Replacement buses were arranged from Woking from around 6.50pm on Thursday, with services also laid on from Basingstoke and Southampton Central. Some of the buses were themselves delayed by local traffic.
The closure cut one of the busiest commuter arteries in the south east at the height of the evening peak. The South Western main line carries tens of thousands of passengers a day between Waterloo and Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset towns including Woking, Guildford, Basingstoke and Southampton. With the line blocked, trains were cancelled, delayed or diverted for the rest of the evening, and the knock-on effects were felt across the network.
Separate overcrowding was also reported at London Euston on Thursday evening, where pictures showed hundreds of passengers packed into the concourse waiting for updates. It was not clear whether that was linked to the Waterloo disruption or to the separate travel chaos caused by Storm Austen, which brought heavy rain and high winds to the capital on Thursday, as our Storm Austen live coverage reported.
How to claim
The taxi offer applies only to journeys covered by SWR’s message — between Waterloo and the nine named stations — and only customers who can produce a valid train ticket and a taxi receipt will be reimbursed.
SWR’s advice to anyone affected is to keep every receipt and to note down the details of their journey as soon as possible, since claims made without the required paperwork will not be accepted. The 28-day window means passengers who travelled on Thursday have until late November to submit.
Passengers whose journeys were delayed by 15 minutes or more may also be entitled to Delay Repay compensation under the industry’s standard scheme, which is separate from any taxi claim. Details of how to claim are on SWR’s website.
British Transport Police have not confirmed the nature of the incident that closed the line. Emergency services were contacted for comment.
