Morning commuters' fury at cancellations, delays heading to work

A shortage of train crew meant one rush-hour London service was cancelled and one following service had only eight carriages instead of 12.

That led to overcrowding down the line at Milton Keynes, Leighton Buzzard, Tring and Hemel Hempstead, trains arriving late at Euston and a barrage of complaints.

On disgruntled passenger tweeted: "Chaos trying to get into Euston. Again. You clearly haven’t got a clue about running a service."

Another added: "For some reason I thought 2020 would be different (I was wrong)."

And finally: "What a difference a year makes .... use to be outrage if a train was a couple of mins late, now we are just grateful it turned up even if it is 6mins late and overcrowded!"

Problems started when the 0622 train from Coventry to London terminated at Northampton because there was no driver to take it south.

The 0635 Northampton-Euston train then left Castle Station nearly 14 minutes late and the 0650 was seven minutes late -- with four carriages less than usual.

Last week, LNWR froze season ticket prices for regular commuters after admitting performance had been poor.

But non-season ticket holders faced an average 2.8% hike in their fares.

LNWR bosses blamed problems caused by the introduction of a new timetable in May 2019 and pledged to improve performances.

But commuters may have to wait until May this year with more timetable changes and new rolling stock for major improvements.