SEVERAL rail routes in the south east of England remain blocked or disrupted as communities along the Thames in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Surrey brace themselves for another band of heavy rain and further rises in water levels as the river continues to spread.

Some train services are also affected by landslips, including Southeastern between Tonbridge and Hastings, Southern services to London from East Grinstead and Uckfield, and South West Trains between Eastleigh and Fareham. Trains on the Isle of Wight have been replaced by buses because of a landslip at Sandown.

Major disruption continues in the far south west, as Network Rail continues its efforts to stabilise the storm damage at Dawlish which has severed the main line between Plymouth and Exeter. Cornish passengers faced more problems today, as overrunning engineering work meant that no trains could run between Plymouth and Par.

Further east, there are no trains between Bridgwater and Taunton, because of flooding from the Somerset Levels at Bridgwater.

But attention is increasingly turning to the rising upper Thames, which has forced hundreds of people to leave their homes. River flooding at Hinksey has disrupted train services between Oxford and Didcot, and there are no services between Staines and Windsor & Eton Riverside because of floods at Datchet. Intermediate stations on this line cannot be served by replacement buses, because roads in the area are also blocked by floodwater.

Meanwhile First Great Western services between Reading and London have been reduced to four trains an hour, because flooding at Maidenhead has damaged signalling equipment.