RAIL passengers travelling between York and London faced major disruption over the Bank Holiday weekend after overhead power lines were damaged.

Problems started on Saturday with about 200 metres of damage affecting all four lines between Grantham and Peterborough, which delayed East Coast and Grand Central lines between York and London.

Normal service was resumed by 8.30am on Sunday morning after engineers worked through the night, but between 11am and 5.30pm, more disruption was caused by a separate case of damaged overhead power lines at Copmanthorpe, which caused East Coast trains between York and Doncaster to run about an hour late.

A spokeswoman for East Coast said they were still looking into the cause of the damage and they were able to run a shuttle service of diesel trains between York and Doncaster while electric trains could not run.

Saturday’s problems happened on a busy day for sports fans as they travelled to the capital to watch the Champions League Final and the Rugby Union Premiership Final at Twickenham.

Manchester United fans Ben Pilgrim and Martin Chambers, from York, were two of many experiencing delays.

Ben said they set off on the 10.29am East Coast service from York, which should have arrived at 12.46pm, but finally got to London after 4pm.

“We were standing outside Doncaster for 40 minutes and then had to stand for another half hour at the station. Eventually we went through very slowly to Newark. They said the service would be terminating at Grantham, but they hoped to have alternative transport to Peterborough, where they said the service was working. There were hundreds of people in the queue for the coaches, so we jumped into a cab, which cost us £80.

“When we got to Peterborough, East Coast still wasn’t running, but there was a very slow train going through Cambridge and Hertfordshire. It took twice as long, but we thought we’d best get on it because who knew when it would start again.”

Luckily for Ben and Martin, the match kicked off at 7.45pm, but some rugby fans weren’t so lucky.

“We weren’t panicking, but we would have been if it had carried on much more. Various other people we know were coming down for the rugby and had to abandon it,” he said.