COMMUTERS traveling to and from London were subject to chaos and delays today as problems with overhead wires in the Pitsea area wreaked carnage on services.

Services were largely at random, with travelers on all services told to discard electronic notices and pre-recorded announcements and take advice from platform staff only.

Services on the Tilbury loop to London were particularly hard hit, with a shuttle train running from Grays to Upminster to allow some commuters to take the option of using the underground service.

Delays and cancellations, which began last night, were expected to last throughout the day.

Buses have replaced trains between Pitsea and Leigh and are running about every 15 minutes.

At 8.30am today, c2c said the problems had been fixed and services would start to get back to normal. However, at midday trains were still severely disrupted.