Rail passengers endured a morning of rush-hour misery today after overhead cable problems halted all but a few trains into one of the UK’s busiest stations.

Neither Virgin Trains nor the London Midland rail company was able to operate in or out of London’s Euston station during the morning rush hour after the cable failure near Wembley in north west London last night.

Passengers arriving at Euston were greeted by virtually empty departure boards and were directed to other London stations. They were told their tickets would be valid on alternative routes.

The only trains able to use Euston today were those run by the London Overground company.

Virgin had to cancel a number of services and also had to take passengers from Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire to London by bus. London Midland was not able to run any trains between London and Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, while ScotRail had to divert sleeper services. Trains run by the Southern rail company were also affected.

Commuters battling to get to work against the extreme cold had delays of around 90 minutes because of the Euston problems.

A Network Rail (NR) spokesman said that Virgin and London Midland expected to start running trains to and from Euston once more by around 10am, but that Virgin would be operating a reduced service, with only two trains per hour from Euston to Birmingham and Manchester, and one per hour to Chester, Liverpool and Glasgow. London Midland would also be running a modified service.

The spokesman went on: “Our specialists will work throughout the day and night to repair the infrastructure with the aim of a full service tomorrow morning.

“Passengers are advised to check with train operators or national rail inquiries before travelling. Network Rail apologises to anyone whose journeys have been disrupted.”

Virgin passengers on the West Coast Main Line, which terminates at Euston, have been hit by a series of incidents over the last week.

The line was closed after a light plane crashed near the tracks near Stafford on Friday in an accident which claimed three lives. Then overhead cable problems at Watford in Hertfordshire led to delays and cancellations on Sunday and Monday.

Just as the Watford incident was fixed, West Coast passengers had to put up with more delays yesterday following two overhead wire problems - one north of Rugby in the West Midlands, the other at Bletchley in Buckinghamshire.

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