COMMUTERS suffered nightmare journeys this morning after a cable fault brought all trains between Southend Victoria and London Liverpool Street to a halt.

An overhead line in Rochford, near Hall Road, came down at 6.15am, causing chaos for early morning rail passengers.

After the cable fell, only one train ran yesterday morning out of Victoria station, shortly after 9am. The first train to leave Victoria following the cable being repaired was at 2.25pm.

Replacement bus services were eventually laid on to Wickford, where travellers were able to catch a train. Later in the day the bus service ran to and from Hockley.

Two trains an hour ran between Liverpool Street and Hockley, where a bus service was then provided for passengers going on towards Southend.

Two buses an hour were also provided for passengers going in the opposite direction.

The cancellations affected those travelling on the line from Southend Victoria, Prittlewell, Southend Airport, Rochford, Hockley, and Rayleigh travelling in either direction.

c2c were accepting tickets from Greater Anglia users throughout the day.

Station workers were on hand to notify users of the cancellations and direct them to the replacement buses but there were hundreds of disgruntled passengers.

The train line reopened at just after 2pm A spokesperson for Network Rail confirmed that a cable had come down in the Hall Road area of Rochford, and that engineers had been on the scene since the problem was reported.

A Greater Anglia spokesperson apologised to customers affected by the disruption, and added: "Following a problem with the overhead power lines in the Rochford area this morning, Greater Anglia’s train services were replaced by buses between Hockley and Southend Victoria whilst Network Rail fixed the problem.”

RAIL passengers affected by the delays vented their anger on Twitter to the popular unofficial Greater Anglia Complaints @Delayed_Again.

The account retweets complaints passengers have put towards the official Greater Anglia Twitter account. Their anger and frustration was mixed between the delays caused to their journeys and the treatment they received from some members of staff at stations.
Greater Anglia are one of the company’s taking part this week in this National Customer Service week.

maggifitt ‏@maggifitt5h
Can't believe how poor @greateranglia service has been today #nowork #trainproblems

King Timbo ‏@The_real_Tim_P
@greateranglia Continuity and contingency planning - ever heard of it? How is it acceptable to say "no trains, wait"? Buses?

Richard ‏@SpeakinSoFreely6h
This must be the worst of the worst delay that any train franchise has no train into London #Stranded with no help from #GA

MsVictoria ‏@MsVictoria22h
@greateranglia It's gone 2pm & yet GA website hasn't been updated since 12pm don't you think when such severe issues it needs more attention

KatieOLeary ‏@KatieOLeary1h
@greateranglia Cancelled with 2mins notice people are now waiting for an hour with no explanations. #disgrace

ken suttling ‏@KenSuttling1h
@greateranglia never in the field of human endeavour has so much disruption been caused to so many by so few - well done GA.