A TRAIN left the rails as it pulled away from a station.

No trains will be able to stop at Bognor station today following the early hours incident.

The derailment was reported shortly before 5.30am, leaving all lines in and out of the station blocked.

A Southern Rail spokesman confirmed that no passengers or crew had been injured during the incident.

He said: “A very low speed partial derailment occurred at Bognor as a train was leaving the platform.

"Network Rail and Rail Accident Investigation Board staff are on site and investigations into the incident have started.

"The early news is that two sets of points have been damaged, so as well as the derailed train having to be lifted back onto the track, these will have to be repaired before we are allowed to run over the area.

"We can confirm that no passengers or crew were injured in this accident."

The rail company issued advice to passengers whose journeys are set to be disrupted by the blockage for the next five hours.

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The spokesman said: “Please check before you travel and leave extra time to complete your journey this morning.

“Rail replacement buses have been requested to run between Bognor and Barnham..

“If you are travelling from Bognor, you will need to take a rail replacement bus to Barnham to connect with train services.

“If you are travelling to Bognor, you will need to take a train service to Barnham and change there for a rail replacement bus.

"A shuttle bus has been requested to run between Bognor Regis and Littlehampton.

"This incident has meant that we cannot get all of our trains out of Bognor station to run all of our services to full capacity.

"Please be aware that this may impact on social distancing, as some of our trains will be cancelled and some will run with less coaches than normal, meaning more people will be aboard each train."

Anyone delayed by 15 minutes or more can claim Delay Repay compensation.

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