Row as Southeastern commuter trains into London cancelled

Earlier this month, rail passengers were told trains were delayed due to "strong sunlight"

Southeastern has blamed Network Rail after more than 20 rush-hour trains were cancelled, leaving commuters with hours of delays.

More than 20 rush-hour trains into London from Kent did not run, with some passengers delayed for two hours.

Services between Ashford and London were disrupted when lines were left without power because of overrunning engineering work.

A Southeastern spokesman said services were now "back to normal".

He said the delays caused by the power loss between Maidstone and Swanley "due to overrunning engineering works, which were supposed to be finished on time today.

"We do apologise for the disruption, but it is out of our control - we can only run our services if the track is fit for purpose," he said.

"Around 70% of all delays are down to infrastructure problems and we are challenging Network Rail to ensure that its asset maintenance programme is fit for purpose."

'Claim compensation'

Network Rail responded saying the conductor rail had been damaged when a piece of equipment broke down at Kemsing.

A spokesman said: "We apologise to passengers who were disrupted this morning and would urge passengers to use the delay repay scheme to claim compensation.

During the disruption, passenger Sue Jones tweeted: "Totally fed up - if my performance at work was as poor as the train companies then I would have been fired!"

The bi-annual National Rail Passenger Survey has found the operators with the three lowest ratings all covered south-east England.

Thameslink had the lowest proportion of satisfied passengers at 73%, followed by Southeastern (75%) and Southern (78%).

Earlier this month, Southeastern blamed "bright sunlight" for delays to services through south-east London.