An apology for disruption: 18 and 19 October 2022

We would like to apologise to the customers caught up in disruption on the c2c network over the last 24 hours. We have experienced numerous issues which have caused significant challenges.

In the late afternoon on Tuesday 18th we had a cable fire at a set of signals in the Grays area. This meant that we could only run services on the mainline so were unable to serve stations on the Tilbury line beyond Ockendon.

We quickly arranged replacement buses but extensive local traffic issues due to the protesters at the QE2 Bridge meant that getting these to stations took much longer than expected. We also arranged ticket acceptance with local transport providers, though any road transport remained impacted.

Once the issue was fixed, we worked hard to recover the service for customers, with normal running commencing just after 21:00.

Unfortunately, as we started up service on the morning of Wednesday 19th, a fire caused damage to the overhead electric wires between Upminster and West Ham, cutting off the power supply. This meant we were unable to move trains out of the depot at East Ham so saw many of our early trains delayed, disrupted or cancelled, causing further disruption for our customers.

Rob Mullen, Managing Director of c2c said, “We are really sorry to all of our customers who were caught up in these incidents in the last 24 hours, we know they have caused extensive disruption to your journeys. We are urgently reviewing the incidents with our operational teams to ensure we make any changes necessary to ensure this does not happen again.”

If you were caught up in disruption, please claim delay repay here: https://www.c2c-online.co.uk/help-feedback/delay-repay