Rail chaos as 16 trains are cancelled

RAIL commuters faced long delays and overcrowding during Tuesday morning s rush hour after 16 southbound Thameslink trains were cancelled due to signal failure. Sixteen of the 57 trains that call at Harpenden, St Albans and Radlett during the peak morning

RAIL commuters faced long delays and overcrowding during Tuesday morning's rush hour after 16 southbound Thameslink trains were cancelled due to signal failure.

Sixteen of the 57 trains that call at Harpenden, St Albans and Radlett during the peak morning rush hour were cancelled causing delays of more than half-an-hour.

At St Albans, commuters were having to queue to even get into the station.

Train operator First Capital Connect (FCC) said the cancellations were caused by a piece of machinery that damaged signals during engineering works being carried out by Network Rail.

On Monday a set of points failed near Cricklewood causing a reduced service to run on the Thameslink line.

Communications project manager Amanda Shaw said services were expected to get back to normal by midday.

She said that approximately 20,000 people used St Albans station each day and they were acutely aware of the disruption cancelled trains caused.

She added that they were working closely with Network Rail to keep such problems to a minimum.