Commuters were late for work today after a crossing guard overslept and failed to turn up for work on time.

The 5.25am from Clacton to Liverpool Street was delayed for around half an hour when the guard - who works at the Burrs Road crossing in Great Clacton - did not show.

A spokeswoman for Railtrack, which employs the man, apologised to passengers who were on the train but said the delay was down to human error.

"People do oversleep from time to time - we have all done it and it happens to the best of us," she said.

"Unfortunately it has a bit more of an effect on other people when you are a level crossing keeper."

She said she believed it was the first time it had happened to the employee who was very embarrassed over what had happened.

"As soon as we knew there was a problem we got one of our mobile supervisors to the crossing in a van so the train could get away," she added.

"The crossing keeper turned up shortly afterwards and carried on with his shift - albeit late."

She said it was only one train which had been affected by the problem.

A spokeswoman for Great Eastern said they were unable to let the train leave Clacton Railway Station until a Railtrack employee was on duty for safety reasons.

"It finally left just after 6am and obviously Essex commuters were affected along the line," she said.

"I can confirm it was the only train which was significantly delayed - although one or two others suffered a delay of five minutes or so."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.