Power failure cripples trains

A huge power cut today brought chaos to train services between London and the Midlands.

Signals were knocked out when the power cut occurred between Luton and Chiltern Green at 10.15am and the backup supply did not kick in.

Engineers from Network Rail, which is responsible for maintaining the rail infrastructure, found the fault this afternoon and power was restored - but too late to prevent knock-on delays for thousands of travellers into the evening rushhour-The failure, which was believed to be in a main power cable, knocked out four lines, leaving trains stranded between stations.

Services to the two fast lines were restored but huge knock-on delays were inevitable. A spokeswoman said: "Everything will be running as soon as we can get it to run. We have got to track the problem to make sure it does not happen again and reset the signals before the trains can run because we have to have absolute safety."

Affected services included Thameslink and Midland Mainline which was operating with 30-minute delays. Thameslink described the problem as a "major track circuit failure" which had forced the company to halt trains between St Albans and Leagrave in Bedfordshire.

Thameslink said that people travelling during the rush hour "are going to have their journeys disrupted".