Thousands of commuters faced frustrating delays last night and this morning when all services to London's Liverpool Street station were cancelled after scaffolding collapsed on to the tracks.
All trains in and out of Liverpool Street were suspended at about 7.15pm yesterday when the scaffolding debris fell on to the tracks from a railway bridge.
Following the incident, Network Rail turned off overhead powerlines. This halted trains and meant more than 1,000 passengers were forced to walk along the tracks back to Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green stations, led by police and rail staff.
According to some reports, hundreds of people were trapped in carriages for more than an hour outside Liverpool Street station after the incident.
Laurence Brown, 40, an investment banker from Enfield Lock, told the Evening Standard he was delayed both last night and this morning.
"I had to spend £50 on a taxi to get home yesterday and this morning I'm running 45 minutes late. It took me two and a half hours to get home last night which was just a joke.''
Alex Charalambous, 20, a sales representative from Chingford, Essex, was trapped on a National Express train for an hour and a half just 500 metres outside Bethnal Green station.
''The driver said something had fallen on the tracks. Eventually the police got on the tracks and evacuated us. We walked up to Bethnal Green. There were babies in buggies and old people. It was really odd – seeing hundreds of people on the tracks.''
Engineers worked through the night to get services back to normal this morning, according to National Express East Anglia (NEEA). However, commuters found chaos, with trains unable to pass through Liverpool Street, the second busiest station in London after Waterloo.
Hundreds of people were stranded outside London, with trains terminating at Stratford, Tottenham Hale, Hackney Downs or Seven Sisters. These commuters then overwhelmed the underground system.
Those travelling from eastern England this morning, including commuters from Cambridge, Colchester, Ipswich and Norwich, and passengers from Stansted airport, were among those affected by the suspension.
British Transport police said once the obstruction was cleared an engineer would examine the bridge to ensure it was safe.
NEEA later said that services in and out of Liverpool Street resumed just after 9.30am.
"There will be some delays and cancellations but we are hoping to be able to have a full service running in time for the evening rush hour," a company spokeswoman said.
The bridge was constructed about a month ago as part of the new East London line, due to open in 2010. Work was being carried out to move the bridge into its final position when incident occurred.
A Transport for London spokesman said: "The contractors were jacking up the bridge. The jack collapsed and debris from the supports for the bridge fell on to the tracks. We are investigating the incident."
The problems are the latest in a series for travellers into Liverpool Street, who faced heavy disruption over the new year when the station failed to reopen after major engineering works, resulting in a substantial fine for Network Rail.
