Network Rail has announced that damage to overhead line equipment between London and Bedford, that has affected train services all day today, should be fixed before the evening peak.

This will allow train operators Thameslink and East Midlands Railway to run more trains.

This morning, damage to the overhead line equipment was reported between Harpenden and Bedford. This means that trains are only able to travel on two lines in this area, as opposed to four.

Network Rail engineers have been working overnight and are working to carry out a temporary fix to allow a full service to resume as quickly as possible.

When workers arrived on site, they found that one of the overhead electric wires had snapped.

To allow repair work to be carried out safely, the power to this section of overhead line equipment has been turned off.

Incidents like this have a knock on effect to trains elsewhere in the country, as trains and crews are not in the right place to run the timetable.

A permanent repair will be carried out overnight. When no trains are running.

What did the officials say?

Gary Walsh, Network Rail’s Route Director in the East Midlands, said:

“I’m very sorry for the difficult journeys which some East Midlands Railway and Thameslink customers have experienced today.

“The disruption has been caused by damage to our overhead line equipment and we are working as hard as we can to fix the problem. We expect to have all lines back running as normal this afternoon.

“I would encourage passengers to continue to check before travelling today as, even when incidents like this are resolved, there can be knock-on delays due to train sets and workers being out of place.”

Tom Moran, Managing Director for Thameslink and Great Northern said:

“We are preparing to resume services as soon as the lines reopen and will run as many trains as possible for the evening rush hour, bearing in mind trains and drivers have been displaced by the disruption.

“We have extra staff out at stations and full information about alternative travel arrangements on our website thameslinkrailway.com where I would also urge anyone delayed by 15 minutes or more to claim Delay Repay compensation.”

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