Train chaos as Birmingham New Street services hit by disruption

Commuters are facing long delays of up to two hours today after a number of train services in the West Midlands were disrupted due to signalling problems.

London Midland have warned that trains running through Birmingham New Street may be cancelled or delayed by up to 120 minutes.

The problem has delayed services on the Liverpool Lime Street to Birmingham New Street route, disrupting trains running through Coseley, Wolverhampton, Penkridge and Stafford by up to 50 minutes.

Trains in Tipton, Dudley Port, Sandwell & Dudley, Smethwick also suffered heavy delays.

It comes after several areas close to Birmingham New Street station experienced a fault in the signalling equipment this morning, meaning that trains in the area had to stop and could not run as usual.

This has led to, what London Midland describe as "effectively, a large traffic jam of trains in the Birmingham area, with significant delays to some of those trains of up to 2 hours."

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In a statement, London Midland, said: "To enable to get trains moving again, and return our train crews to the correct locations, without adding the issue or making the traffic jam of trains worse, we have needed to temporarily suspend the train service on the Cross City Line (Redditch/Longbridge - Birmingham - Lichfield Trent Valley/City).

"This also means that other London Midland services to/from Birmingham New Street are subject to delay too.

"We appreciate that this still leaves many customers without trains in the area, and we are doing what we can to return our trains and train crews to the right locations and reinstate the train service as quickly as possible."

Tickets are being accepted on local buses and Midland Metro services.