Rail disruption: Thousands of train passengers affected by sudden cancellations

Tens of thousands of passengers using key inter-city rail lines have had their journeys disrupted.

Travellers hoping to use the West Coast main line, connecting London Euston with northwest England, are suffering long delays and cancellations.

All lines through Stoke-on-Trent are closed because of flooding, and other routes in the area are experiencing problems.

Passengers are being told: "Disruption is expected to continue until the end of service on Sunday 27 October."

There are widespread cancellations and long delays, and some CrossCountry and Virgin Trains services are being diverted via Crewe – not calling at Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield or Stockport.

Flooding is also affecting lines from Crewe to Chester, and lines from both Crewe and Shrewsbury into Wales.

On trans-Pennine routes, there are problems between Huddersfield and Leeds, and in the Hull area.

Many passengers hoping to travel between London and northern England have switched to East Midlands Railway, which operates from Sheffield to London St Pancras.

As a result, services on the line via Derby and Leicester, and connecting links from Sheffield, are reported to be extremely crowded.

The pressure on the Sheffield-London line was intensified by severe disruption on Britain’s flagship rail line.

LNER, which runs trains on the East Coast main line from London King’s Cross to Yorkshire, northeast England and Scotland, cancelled a series of trains from London to Leeds, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Heading south, trains from Scotland, Leeds and Newcastle were cancelled or terminated at Doncaster, and others ran with long delays.

Shirley Metcalf boarded the 7.56am from Newcastle to London King's Cross with a reserved seat. She told The Independent: "The train pulled up at Doncaster, where we were told that train was terminating due to no driver being available.

"We were advised to catch next train, but it was standing room only for two-and-a-half hours.”

Staff shortage was blamed for the shambolic start to the weekend. Longer journeys than normal had already been scheduled because of engineering work between Peterborough and Doncaster.

Journey times were to have been extended by an hour as trains were diverted via Lincoln.

But on Saturday morning LNER found it did not have sufficient drivers trained on the diversionary route.

During the morning, passengers at King’s Cross were being told to take any train north to Peterborough, from where buses were arranged for the 90-mile journey to Doncaster.

A spokesperson for LNER said: “We apologise to customers affected by disruption today.

“This is due to a shortage of train drivers with requisite route knowledge to operate during today’s engineering works.”

An early train from Edinburgh Waverley, due in at 12.01pm, ran two hours late – with the journey from York to London, which normally takes less than two hours, extending to five hours.

​Further planned engineering work by Network Rail will disrupt early services on Sunday, with no fast trains northbound from King's Cross before 11am.