⚠️ There's some big changes to @Se_Railway services through #Chislehurst tonight and tomorrow morning, affecting trains to #Sevenoaks, #Tonbridge and further afield. The reason is emergency engineering work related to this pink rail - read on... /1 
The rail is dyed pink so the crack you can see on the left can be seen more clearly - and it's the crack that's causing the disruption. It's part of a crossing, that allows trains to cross from one track to another, and the crack means trains can only pass over it at 5mph. /2
This shows the crack seen through a handheld scanner and you can see from the scale of it that we can't leave this in place for long and still run a normal service, so tonight our team from Orpington Delivery Unit is coming in to cut the section out and replace it. /3
This is the location, on a set of points just north of Chislehurst, on the line on the far left. The close up view gives you more detail if that's your thing. /4
We're going to have to close all four tracks for 2 hours tonight so we can get our equipment over to the damaged rail - Sod's Law says the failure is always as far from the access point as it could be - but then we can reopen 1 to run trains again. So... /5
Our friends @Se_Railway have written a plan to keep trains running as much as they can, through diversions, new times and cancellations. Please do check with them if you're travelling this evening or tomorrow. We're really sorry for the disruption and... /6
... we're investigating what caused this crack to appear. We have ultrasonic test trains covering every inch of our railway every month, and we also visually inspect tracks too, to keep you safe. When they find a problem, we have to take action. Thank you for your patience. Ends.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
