Gridlock after Thatcham level crossing barriers failure

Reports of four-mile queues following barrier failure

THERE was traffic chaos in and around Thatcham last night because of failed level crossing barriers at the station.

The barriers became stuck at around 5.30pm and congestion on nearby roads quickly ensued. Traffic was reportedly queuing back to Woolhampton because of the failure, while Station Road became gridlocked.

Commenting on the NewburyToday forum Washwaterman said that it had taken an hour an five minutes to travel from the SSE roundabout to the level crossing.

Tweeter @_Calamity_Jane said: "Some rail workers or local police need to get down there if poss. Was Chaos & no one to tell ppl."

Network Rail engineers arrived on the site at 6.45pm and manually lifted the barriers to enable traffic to pass through.

A number of trains were also delayed for an hour and 51 minutes.

A spokeswoman for Network Rail, Victoria Bradley, said that the fault caused the barriers to stay down "as they should always do for safety reasons."

The fault was identified with the signalling system in the Colthrop crossing box and was fixed at around 2.45am on Wednesday

Mrs Bradley apologised for the inconvenience caused.