Engineering works caused havoc for rail passengers yesterday as South West Trains hired old Routemaster buses to shuttle people around south-west London.

Buses replaced suspended trains on the Kingston loop, and from Chessington and Surbiton to central London.

The company brought in more than 100 buses and 200 drivers for the operation.

Passengers were left frustrated and angry by the service, complaining on Twitter about a lost bus driver and severely delayed journeys.

@klight82 tweeted: "rail replacement bus is now stopped at earlsfield as the driver does not know how to get Wimbledon from here. Help us SWTrains!!"

Ryan Thompson asked the firm: "Any reason why there's been no rail replacement at Chessington South for well over an hour now? How unorganised can you be?"

@_ElizabethD said: "I was dropped at Hampton Wick at 1615. Over 1.5 hrs later I'm still on a bus. Train journey usually 16 mins. Not happy."

 


 

A spokeswoman for South West Trains blamed two road accidents in Kingston for some of the delays.

She said: "As a result of major rail improvement work being carried out on a large part of our network yesterday, a complex rail replacement bus network was put into place for passengers.

"The majority of the replacement bus services ran smoothly.

"However, we are aware of some issues that resulted in delays to some services.

"In particular, two road traffic accidents in the Kingston area caused traffic congestion and delays to a number of bus services.

"We are sorry for any inconvenience this caused for our passengers.

"Updates were provided through our Twitter feed and there were staff on hand at stations to provide information for customers.

"We would like to thank our passengers for their patience during this important engineering work.

"As a matter of course we will be reviewing the whole operation to see where lessons can be learned for the future."