Travel chaos at major London station as flights delayed at Heathrow and Gatwick

Gatwick Express, Southern and Thameslink routes to and from Brighton and towards Bedford or Cambridge are seeing major disruption this evening.

Currently there are five ongoing incidents in the Sussex area:

• A trespass incident near Brighton
• A police incident at Angmering
• An earlier report of a level crossing being misused near Arundel, between Horsham and Barnham
• A communication alarm being activated on a train at Angmering earlier
• An earlier trespass incident between Worthing and Shoreham-by-Sea

Major disruption is expected until at least 8pm, and some trains have been forced to stop in between stations, leaving passengers stranded.

Journeys are taking up to an hour longer than usual in some cases.

London Overground routes between Liverpool Street and Chingford / Enfield Town / Cheshunt are being disrupted, as some lines have been blocked.

The signal fault at Chingford meant trains to and from that station were delayed – but staff had to block the line at Hackney Downs to investigate, meaning all services to and from Liverpool Street could now be affected.

The disruption is set to last until at least 6pm.

National Rail has issued advice to passengers hoping to get on a rail replacement bus this evening:

There are also a number of bus services which will accept your train ticket – click on the X post below and scroll through the thread for the full list.

It’s been an eventful day for travel at Heathrow after a string of delays – mainly by British Airways – some cancellations and one emergency landing.

Here are the delayed flights at Heathrow this evening according to the latest airport departure board information.

British Airways BA820 at 4.15pm to Copenhagen

Lufthansa LH2477 at 4.25pm to Munich

British Airways BA464 at 4.30pm to Madrid

Aer Lingus EI169 at 4.50pm to Dublin

British Airways BA1488 at 5.10pm to Glasgow

British Airways BA322 at 5.20pm to Paris

British Airways BA370 at 5.20pm to Marseille

British Airways BA856 at 5.25pm to Prague

British Airways BA576 at 5.40pm to Milan

British Airways BA1316 at 6pm to Aberdeen

British Airways BA442 at 6pm to Amsterdam

British Airways BA1454 at 6.05pm to Edinburgh

British Airways BA396 at 6.05pm to Brussels

British Airways BA1348 at 6.15pm to Jersey

British Airways BA1492 at 6.20pm to Glasgow

British Airways BA672 at 6.35pm to Larnaca

British Airways BA920 at 6.35pm to Stuttgart

British Airways BA946 at 6.40pm to Dusseldorf

British Airways BA932 at 6.45pm to Cologne

TAP Portugal TP1357 at 6.45pm to Lisbon

British Airways BA786 at 7.10pm to Stockholm

British Airways BA558 at 7.10pm to Rome

British Airways BA1426 at 7.20 to Belfast

British Airways BA885 at 7.30pm to Bucharest

British Airways BA988 at 7.35pm to Berlin

British Airways BA720 at 7.45pm to Zurich

Loganair LM658 at 7.45pm to Derry

TAP Portugal TP1369 at 7.50 to Lisbon

British Airways BA1498 at 8pm to Glasgow

British Airways BA802 at 8pm to Gothenburg

British Airways BA1450 at 8pm to Edinburgh

British Airways BA352 at 8.05pm to Nice

British Airways BA1404 at 8.35pm to Manchester

British Airways BA858 at 8.35pm to Prague

British Airways BA582 at 8.40pm to Milan

British Airways BA1338 at 8.45pm to Newcastle

British Airways BA1496 at 9.50pm to Glasgow

British Airways BA157 at 10.20 to Kuwait

The BA554 flight at 4.15pm to Rome has been cancelled.

Passengers on South Western Railway trains to and from London Waterloo face major trouble ahead of the rush hour.

Some lines between Wimbledon and Clapham Junction have been blocked after an electrical supply issue.

Trains between these stations – including at Waterloo – could be cancelled, delayed by up to 15 minutes or revised.

At the moment, major disruption is forecast to last until 9pm.

Services will not call in the London-bound direction at New Malden, Raynes Park and Wimbledon.

Trains between Waterloo and Shepperton will be diverted to Twickenham, National Rail said.

What to do if you need to travel on this route

Passengers can use their tickets for free on Great Western Railway between Basingstoke, Reading and London Paddington, Southern Railway between London Victoria and Dorking, CrossCountry between Reading and Basingstoke, London Underground and London Buses.

The rush hour hasn’t even started yet and the London road network is already seeing some delays and disruption.

Drivers have been told to expect delays on Tower Bridge A100 when it opens today.

Traffic analyst Inrix says the bridge is due to open at 7.30pm and at 10pm tonight.

Tower Bridge opens around 800 times a year – that’s twice a day on average.

The bridge openings have reduced since the heyday of merchant shipping, but it still has to open regularly to let tall vessels through.

In 1894, Tower Bridge was lifted 6,194 times per year, so around 17 times per day.

The motorway has closed in West Yorkshire at junction J38 southbound after a crash.

All lanes heading south have been shut between Wakefield and Barnsley after the incident shortly after 2pm.

A large section of the Central line on the London Underground has severe delays due to a fire alert.

It is causing severe delays between Leytonstone and White City westbound.

Eastbound between Leytonstone, Epping and Hainault via Newbury Park has minor delays, the latest TfL travel status update shows.

If you were hoping for a smooth train journey through central London, the rail network has other plans.

National Rail warned of an obstruction on the track at Farringdon which is disrupting journeys through the station.

It means trains between London St Pancras International and London Blackfriars could be cancelled, delayed by up to 20 minutes or revised.

The issue is set to be resolved by 1.30pm.

Train drivers have voted overwhelmingly to accept a multiyear pay offer, ending a two-year dispute at 16 rail companies.

The Aslef union said its members voted by 96% in favour of a deal the union said was worth 15% over three years. The turnout was 84%.

The offer was made by the new Labour Government within weeks of the party winning the general election.

The ballot result ends what Aslef called the longest train drivers’ strike in recent history, during which drivers took 18 days of strike action.

A Great Western Railway train service from Reading to Gatwick was cancelled yesterday after a group of squirrels got onboard and ‘refused’ to leave.

A spokesman for GWR said the squirrels boarded ‘without tickets’, and began ‘attacking’ passengers onboard.

A source told The Sun: ‘It was complete pandemonium. The squirrels got into the rear carriage and attacked people.

‘All the passengers ran off the train and got another carriage. The conductor then had to lock the doors to stop the squirrels moving up the train.’

Passengers on London Overground face severe disruption set to last until lunchtime.

Journeys between Stratford, Clapham Junction and Richmond could be cancelled or take 20 minutes longer than usual.

It comes after a signalling fault at Canonbury.

Disruption is expected to last at least until 11.30am.

A British Airways flight to Budapest suddenly declared an emergency before retuning back to Heathrow.

Shortly after taking off from Heathrow, the pilot signalled a general emergency on board.

Read more about it below.

Drivers have been caught in traffic chaos on the M25 in Surrey.

A van went up in flames on the hard shoulder south of Caterham.

Two out of four lanes have closed anticlockwise between junctions J7 and J6, causing almost an hour-long delays at rush hour.

There are long tailbacks on approach.

Congestion is also building up clockwise from J5 due to construction in the area.

Passengers at Gatwick have been spared any major disruption today.

Here are the flights listed as delayed so far today.

EasyJet EZY8019 at 6am to Madrid

Eastern Airways T3452 at 9.25am to Newquay

British Airways BA2576 at 5.30pm to Nice

Here are the departing flights listed as delayed and cancelled on the airport departure board.

Delayed

American Airlines AA731 at 9.15am to Charlotte

American Airlines AA729 at 9.35am to Philadelphia

Virgin Atlantic VS302 at 10.30am to Delhi

British Airways BA938 at 11.10am to Dusseldorf

British Airways BA1412 at 11.35 to Belfast

United Airlines UA017 at 12 pm to New York City

American Airlines AA733 at 12.15pm to Charlotte

British Airways BA193 at 1.05pm to Dallas Fort Worth

British Airways BA197 at 2.50pm to Houston

British Airways BA566 at 3pm to Milan

American Airlines AA735 at 3.15pm to Charlotte

British Airways BA870 at 9.15pm to Budapest

Cancelled

British Airways BA306 at 8.40am to Paris

Virgin Atlantic VS005 at 11.15am to Miami

While journeys are set to be back to normal at London Bridge, trains have been hit by disruption between Norwich and London.

A fault with the signalling system at Norwich has blocked some lines.

Trains between Norwich and Cromer, Sheringham, Great Yarmouth, Cambridge, Ipswich and London Liverpool Street could be cancelled, delayed by up to 30 minutes or revised.

The disruption is expected to last until 8.30am

National Rail has confirmed railways are running as normal this morning after engineers worked to fix the damaged equipment near Brockley Station.

Services between East Croydon/West Croydon/Crystal Palace and London Bridge/Canada Water were cancelled or revised.

Passengers were told to avoid London Bridge station yesterday.