'Sheer hell' for commuters

10:01am Thursday 8th January 2009

Comments (1)   Have your say »

Watford's MP has called for a quick explanation to a week of rail problems after commuters faced more cancellations and hour long delays yesterday evening.

Yesterday morning, power failures on the West Coast Mainline, which connects London Euston and Watford Junction, brought rail services to a complete standstill and stranded thousands of passengers.

Claire Ward said recent timetable changes to peak hour services were already “not good enough” without the delays and demanded quick action and refunds for passengers caught up in the travel chaos.

She said: “It's been sheer hell for people and we need to be given assurances that they know what is causing this and that it will not happen again. In the present economic climate businesses cannot afford to have something like this happen.”

The power-failure sparked delays which continued all through the day with Virgin and London Midland running only around a third of their usual trains.

During the evening commute, despite promises that services would be brought as close to normal as possible, frustrated passengers stared at timetable screens to read of constant cancellations and delays.

As Watford Junction station, usually packed with a steady stream of commuters, was left empty aside from short hourly bursts, the Watford Observer was refused entry by London Midland staff.

This morning the rail provider, which took over the running of the station in November 2007, said services were back to normal.

A spokesperson said: “All London Midland services are operating to and from London today.  Network Rail has completed repair work overnight on the overhead power lines in the Wembley area and the West Coast main line was reopened from 06.00 this morning.

We are very sorry for the disruption to your journeys this week as a result of problems on the West Coast.”