Rail chaos ... but don't blame weekend repairs

Tens of thousands of rail passengers suffered disruption today when the West and East Coast main lines had to close.

The West Coast route came to a halt at 9.30am - only hours after Network Rail announced the system was up and running following engineering work over the bank holiday weekend.

A loss of power at Milton Keynes forced all Virgin Trains services to and from the North to start and finish at Rugby and Northampton.

Trains immediately began to stack up on the main routes from Scotland to London. There was a train shuttle service between Euston and Bletchley.

The East Coast main line came to a halt after the 6.45am Skipton to King's Cross train killed a person on the line at Grantham. Commuters coming into Waterloo main line station also suffered delays caused by a signal failure at Wimbledon.

NR had been carrying out weekend engineering work at Milton Keynes but a spokesman said it was not connected with the loss of power.

He said: "The work was at the station, building a new platform, there is no connection between that and the power failure."

NR later introduced hand-signalling in the Milton Keynes area which allowed two trains an hour through instead of four.

East Coast services were later restored but with knock-on delays.

During the holiday weekend large sections of track serving Waterloo and Liverpool Street were closed. Many travellers had feared a repeat of the chaos following the Christmas and Easter holidays when NR engineering work overran.

Chris Bolt, the Rail Regulator, imposed a £14 million fine on NR for failing to complete the work on time.

The NR spokesman said: "All our engineering work was completed on schedule - much of it even finishing early."