East Croydon station faces major disruption this weekend as passengers are urged to avoid travel

By Tara O’Connor, local democracy reporter

Trains going through Croydon will face major delays this weekend as passengers are being urged to only travel if it is essential.

Network Rail will be replacing two damaged rails at a junction just outside Purley. If left unfixed, they could lead to a broken rail.

Work is set to start late on Saturday night and not be completed until around 2pm on Sunday. It will affect trains on the route into London from Brighton.

There will only be one train every 90 minutes between London and Brighton via Gatwick Airport.

And a shortage of bus drivers due to coronavirus and their services being needed elsewhere means there will also be few replacement buses.

Train tickets will be accepted on route 100 buses between Redhill and Gatwick Airport. They will also be accepted on TfL bus routes between Redhill and East Croydon.

Network Rail and Govia Thameslink Railway’s joint network operations director, Mike Paterson, apologised for the major disruption.

He said: “Our advice is to travel only if you absolutely have to while the work is taking place on Sunday morning, as we simply do not have the resources to run enough buses to carry everyone safely.

“We’ve got one line open, which will allow a very limited train service to run, but nowhere near what we would need to carry the normal number of passengers to the beach on a Sunday morning.”

Mr Paterson said invisible defects were found inside two rains near Purley which have to be cut out and replaced.

“We’re keeping the line open until then by running trains more slowly, but that won’t work beyond a few days and we have to balance the need to carry passengers to the airport and the beach this weekend with our ability to do it safely,” he added.

“The nature of this problem means closing the line overnight Saturday and Sunday morning is the least-worst option.”