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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Michael Howie and Miriam Burrell

Rail chaos hits London morning rush-hour as engineers tackle cable damage

Rail services to and from London continue to be impacted on Wednesday morning by damage to overhead wires that has caused disruption since the Queen’s funeral on Monday.

Issues at Stevenage and Hayes & Harlington are causing problems for services through London Kings Cross, Paddington and Moorgate.

Affected passengers are being warned that services through Stevenage will remain disrupted – including with 50 minute delays and cancellations – for the rest of Wednesday.

Thameslink said due to overhead line damage at Stevenage, a revised service is in place on Wednesday.

Repair works are ongoing and are not expected to be finished until the early hours of Thursday morning, it warned.

Trains that run between Moorgate and Stevenage will terminate and start back at Hertford North. Rail replacement buses have been requested and are due to run between Hertford North to Stevenage.

Five trains due to depart Stevenage on Wednesday morning have been cancelled. They were due to arrive at Moorgate and King’s Cross throughout the morning.

At least three Great Northern trains have been delayed, bound for London King’s Cross, Horsham and Peterborough.

Meanwhile, damage to overhead wires at Hayes and Harlington meant fewer services were able to run from Paddington station to destinations in the west on Tuesday, including destinations in Wales, and south-west England, as well as Heathrow Airport.

The station closed at 10pm to allow engineers to complete repairs, cancelling all GWR and Heathrow Express services in and out of London Paddington until 6am on Wednesday.

National Rail said disruptions were expected to continue until 8am.

On Wednesday morning National Rail said lines at Hayes and Harlington have reopened, but while service recovers, disruption is expected to continue and services may still be cancelled, delayed by up to 60 minutes or revised.

Those travelling towards points north and south of the capital, including destinations in the far north and Scotland as well as central and southern England, have been coping with cancellations and severe delays due to the damage at Stevenage.

The problem in the area arose at around 6:30am on Monday after a number of trains became entangled, the PA news agency understands.

All four lines serving Paddington reopened on Tuesday morning after a 27-hour suspension, but the wires were only working above two of them.

The damage at Hayes and Harlington meant a day of mayhem for mourners who travelled to London for the Queen’s funeral.

The problem caused thousands of mourners to miss the funeral service or to resort to watching it on phones in carriages and on platforms.

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