When is a faulty tram a derailment? When its on London Tramlink it would seem. Thursday 7th March saw approximately 15 hours of disruption for services to Wimbledon with TfL saying at various times that this was down to an electrical supply problem or a faulty tram and although both were true in a way, the actual cause was more that a tram derailed at Wimbledon station.
Exact information on what actually happened is very difficult to find with no official word from TfL but a single photo uploaded to Twitter seems to show a tram suffered a derailment at Wimbledon and may have had some form of impact with another. Just what caused this to happen is unclear but it meant that no services were able to serve Wimbledon for around 15 hours with a resumption not possible until the late evening. It is thought that the derailment did also cause a power supply issue in the vicinity but again it isn’t clear why this may have been. In other words we don’t know the whys but we do know that the disruption was quite severe!
During the day trams were running to various different points before Wimbledon with Phipps Bridge, Mitcham Junction and Dundonald Road all mentioned by Transport for London as being where trams were terminating. There was ticket acceptance on London Buses and South Western Railway and Southern Railway services during the disruption.