RAIL passengers faced travel chaos today as heavy rain swamped North Yorkshire once again and floods caused a string of services to be cancelled.

No trains were running between York and both Leeds and Harrogate this afternoon, with replacement buses being put in operation instead as the region was lashed by more downpours.

A Network Rail spokeswoman said: "We have engineers and teams of operations staff out monitoring water levels and will re-open services as soon as it is safe to do so.

"We apologise to passengers who are disrupted by these flooding conditions and assure them that services will resume as soon as possible."

In Elvington, near York, the village's main street was closed after blocked pumps caused it to be submerged and nearby homes were issued with sandbags.

Roads were also underwater in Naburn on the edge of the city, at Ella Beck between Shipton and Tollerton, and at Brayton crossroads in Selby, while flood warnings remain in place on the River Ouse and River Derwent.

And the bad news is that the situation is set to get worse, with the Environment Agency warning more wet weather is forecast for the rest of the week which could make this the wettest January in York in more than 40 years.