Power failure causes rail line disruption (From Thurrock Gazette)

Power failure causes rail line disruption

10:58am Friday 3rd February 2012 in News

SHIVERING commuters were caught up in major delays on the c2c train line after a power cut.

Two overhead power failures between Fenchurch Street and Barking at about 8am yesterday caused delays of up to an hour.

Passengers were left in chilly conditions onboard the trains as the loss of power meant heating systems were also out of order. Despite the failure, c2c said there was no compensation available for commuters.

A spokesman for c2c – whose line serves all of the Thurrock railway stations – apologised for the delays and the inconvenience caused by the onboard heating problems.

He said: “The overhead power line supply problems that affected c2c services unfortunately also caused some reduction in the usual heating capacity on some train services.

“The power for the heating equipment is received from the trains’ power supply.”

Many commuters took to Twitter to vent their anger at the problems, with many claiming the air conditioning was on in the ice cold trains. However the spokesman denied this.

Engineers from Network Rail worked frantically during the morning to restore power from a plant based in West Ham which feeds electricity to the overhead cables.

Services were restored along all routes at about 1pm once engineers had fixed the problem.