M25 weekend shutdown collides with Waterloo signal chaos to snarl South East

Two separate transport problems have landed on the same weekend, and together they are hitting a very large slice of the South East at once. National Highways closed the M25 between Junctions 10 and 11 in Surrey from 9pm on Friday to 6am Monday, according to [1]. This is the third of five weekend closures under a £317 million scheme to rebuild Junction 10, one of the country's busiest and most dangerous motorway interchanges, and it is scheduled to run until summer 2025, according to [1]. The AA warned that major South East roads would be "incredibly busy" as a result, and flagged extra risk from Euro 2024 final traffic, with the AA's Chris Wood advising drivers to avoid the western M25 and check ferry and tunnel updates before travelling, according to [1]. National Highways has repeated its plea for drivers to follow official diversion routes rather than satnav directions, warning that satnavs risk pushing traffic onto minor roads and causing gridlock in residential areas, according to [1]. The agency's Jonathan Wade said the first two closures in March and May "went well" because most drivers heeded the diversion advice, according to [1]. At the same time, rail passengers in south-west London were hit by a cluster of faults. A speed restriction over defective track between Vauxhall and Clapham Junction disrupted lines towards Wimbledon, with services cancelled, delayed by up to 15 minutes or revised, and National Rail said the disruption was expected to last until the end of Friday, according to [1]. A safety inspection between Clapham Junction and Vauxhall had already blocked some lines earlier in the day, according to [1]. Further out, a signalling fault between Orpington and Tonbridge had cleared, but knock-on problems at Sevenoaks were still affecting London–Kent services, including routes to Tonbridge and Canterbury, according to [1]. South Eastern reported a separate faulty signalling system delaying and revising trains between Charing Cross and Hastings, and on to Ashford International, Dover and Ramsgate, with stopping services between Charing Cross and Sevenoaks unable to run between Orpington and Sevenoaks, according to [1]. A police incident between Sutton and West Croydon had also disrupted the London Overground toward Highbury & Islington, though all lines had reopened by the time of reporting, according to [1]. On the Underground, TfL reported minor delays on the Central, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines, later joined by the Jubilee, while the Victoria line was said to be running a good service, according to [1]. The Vauxhall–Clapham Junction bottleneck sits on Network Rail's Wessex route, which carries more than half a million passengers a day and around 80 million journeys a year to and from Waterloo alone, according to [2] — meaning even a localised speed restriction there has an outsized effect on South West London and the wider south of England. Nothing in this material ties the road and rail problems to a single cause; they read as a scheduled motorway closure landing on top of independent, organic rail faults — track, signalling and a police incident — with genuinely wide reach given the volumes described in [1] and [2]. What to watch next: whether National Highways' diversion routes hold up as they did in the first two closures, and whether Network Rail clears the Vauxhall–Clapham Junction speed restriction before Monday's peak.