COMMUTERS heading home from London faced severe delays and cancellations on the Thameslink line last night.

A reduced service was running from 3pm but the northbound service was completely suspended from 11pm until 4am this morning, leaving stranded passengers having to take other routes home or emergency bus services.

A spokesperson for operator First Capital Connect (FCC) explained: “At around 3pm, Network Rail informed us of a major points failure at Kentish Town. This caused disruption in the afternoon and due to the seriousness of the incident, it was going to lead to delays, cancellations and alterations in the evening peak.

“Unfortunately, the situation worsened and at around 4pm we were informed by Network Rail there was a separate major failure of power feeds from an electrical sub-station at Grahame Park, near Mill Hill. This reduced the power available to run our trains meaning we had to run a reduced service for the rest of the evening.”

He said that Network Rail closed all lines between St Pancras International and Luton from 11pm to undertake emergency engineering repairs and FCC provided a shuttle bus between Hatfield and St Albans to connect passengers who had used FCC’s Great Northern Route instead.

The spokesperson added: “We’d apologise to anyone who experienced delays and will be speaking to Network Rail about these issues. “

But customers have blasted the operator for a lack of communication and long waits for the replacement bus service.