Ice causes rail chaos

A spokesman for Southern Rail said problems started at around 5am with the 4.47am Barnham to Brighton service breaking down due to an iced over conductor rail whilst approaching Littlehampton.

Then the 5.11am Brighton to Seaford was severely delayed at Newhaven town for the same reason.

The 5.08am Eastbourne to London Victoria came across problems at Plumpton which delayed it but it only got as far as Wivelsfield.

This caused tremendous problems on the Brighton main line for the rest of the morning.

These problems were compounded by a broken down train at Norwood Junction which meant many London Bridge services had to be diverted to Victoria.

The Southern spokesman said : 'We are still recovering the service and there are some delays and cancellations at the moment. We are confident that the service will be back to normal in time for this evening's peak.'