A FLEET of special buses will help London Marathon runners stranded by rail engineering works.
Work will be carried out on a recently discovered rail defect between London Waterloo and Vauxhall which will close platforms 1-10 of London Waterloo until 4pm on Sunday (April 21).
Trains heading to Waterloo from Surrey are set to terminate at Wimbledon as the work is done - ptoentially leaving hundreds of Marathon runners and spectators stranded miles from the course.
But today the South West Trains-Network Rail Alliance has confirmed that it will be running a fleet of shuttle buses to help people.
Twenty buses will run from 7am to 4pm on Sunday from Clapham Junction to London Waterloo and Wimbledon to London Waterloo.
Jake Kelly, customer service director for the South West Trains-Network Rail Alliance, said: "We appreciate the inconvenience for passengers that comes with scheduling work of this nature on the same day as the London Marathon.
"We are sorry that many of our passengers will not be able to travel as normal using our trains.
"However, we hope the special shuttle bus operation will help marathon spectators and other customers get to where they want to go as quickly and as easily as possible.
"Unfortunately, there is never an ideal time to carry out this type of work.
"Even if the work could be delayed until the following weekend – which it can't because of the real risk of the infrastructure failing – it would impact a sell-out rugby semi-final at Twickenham.
"It is also impossible to carry out this work between Monday and Friday – around 300,000 people use Waterloo station in both the morning and evening peaks each day.
"On a normal Sunday, around two-thirds fewer passengers travel than on any normal commuter weekday and even taking into account the additional number of passengers travelling for the London Marathon, we still expect to see significantly fewer passengers travelling than on any other weekday or any Saturday."
The emergency works will impact services throughout the day until 4pm.
Dorking to London Waterloo services at 8 and 38 minutes past the hour will terminate at Wimbledon.
The 3.38pm service from Dorking will be the first train to run through to London Waterloo and all subsequent departures will continue as normal.
London Waterloo to Dorking services will start from Wimbledon at 29 and 50 minutes past the hour until 3.29pm. The 5.02pm service will be the first train to start from London Waterloo.
From 4.08pm London Waterloo to Dorking services will run hourly in both directions.
A train service will run between London Waterloo and Wimbledon in both directions but these services are expected to be very busy.
Passengers may use and First Great Western, Southern, London Overground and London Underground services until 5pm and ticket restrictions on advanced tickets will be lifted.
For details visit www.nationalrail.co.uk
