COMMUTERS are facing major disruption due to train cancellations and delays in both directions between Colchester and London.

At about 9.20pm on Thursday it is understood overhead wires were damaged between Witham and Shenfield on the Londonbound carriageway.

Work was carried out overnight but apparently no contingency measures, such as replacement rail buses were put into place.

Commuters attempting to start journeys into London from 5am arrived at train stations to find no trains running.

By 6am commuters were being advised not to travel.

A spokesman for Greater Anglia confirmed there was "major disruption due to overhead wire damage between Shenfield and Witham" with "all lines blocked".

All Londonbound trains were cancelled with no trains expected to run until 2pm and no replacement buses.

Shortly after 9am some trains began running and some replacement buses were put on between Witham and Stansted Airport where commuters could ride the Stansted Express into London.

A spokesman for Greater Anglia described it as "a very limited service" although "all lines are open".

By midday the reports had changed to "some lines are blocked" and it was confirmed trains travelling from London were being cancelled.

This was severely disrupting services to Colchester, Braintree and Clacton.

At this point delays and cancellations were affecting trains in both directions with engineers now trying to fix problems to overhead wires around Chelmsford.

Overhead wire problems were also discovered at Ingatestone with reports of delays and cancellations until 6pm.

A spokesman for Greater Anglia said: "Following repairs to the wires in the Chelmsford area, further damage has been identified on the line between Ingatestone and Chelmsford.

At 2.30pm the latest announcement was engineering works were expected to continue until at least 4.30pm.

Greater Anglia has been criticised for its handling of the problem.

While some accepted overhead wire problems can happen commuters were annoyed no contingency was in place when problems were known about yesterday.


Among those affected was Colchester MP Will Quince who missed the start of a Parliamentary debate on homelessness.

He said: “I am livid. Thousands of people from Colchester were not able to get to work.”

“Network Rail worked through the night.

“If Greater Anglia knew from 10pm about significant problems then why was there no contingency?

“Greater Anglia do not have the best of reputations although over the past year things have been improving.

“This does nothing for the public perception.


“I will be writing to the transport minister, Network Rail and Greater Anglia.”

In a letter to Jamie Burles, managing director of Greater Anglia, he said: "Given that Greater Anglia were aware of this problem at 10pm Thursday evening why did you fail to have a replacement bus service on standby."

It has also been pointed out rail replacement services have been running regularly between Witham and Newbury Park during weekend engineering works so systems could have been put in place.

Many have taken to Twitter to voice their frustration: