New information screens at Winchester Station were officially launched by South West Trains this week.

MP, Mark Oaten, was at the ceremony, which suffered a technical hitch when the system broke down on Monday. Mr Oaten joked: "I seem to be a curseif I visit to open something it never works."

He posed with SWT representatives underneath one of the new information screens and as he did so, the public address system advised passengers to ignore the screens and await further announcements.

The failure stemmed, said a SWT spokesman, from a combination of atrocious weather and the clocks going back on Sunday.

To compound the problem, an electrical fault between Eastleigh and Basingstoke caused long delays to many services on Monday.

Tony Holland, of SWT, added: "I guess what we've seen today is an example of the system with warts and all."

The £15.7m scheme, a joint venture between SWT and Network Rail (formerly Railtrack), monitors every train as it passes through the region. Information is sent to a control room in London, then forwarded to stations and displayed on the screens, installed at 172 of the 176 stations used by SWT.

Said Mr Holland: "I believe the new system will have the biggest impact on our customers, apart from the delivery of new trains."

Mark Somers, of Network Rail, said that the technology had been provided by British Telecom at an annual charge of £800,000.

"There's a back-up system at every station, so it's pretty exceptional for it to go wrong. There are weaknesses, but also a lot of benefits."