The Norwich to London line was thrown into chaos this evening when four trains broke down sparking long delays across East Anglia.

People travelling from the capital to Norwich were first delayed at 5pm when their train broke down.

They got on the 5.02pm which was late arriving at Liverpool Street Station because one of the tracks was blocked.

The train left at 5.30pm but broke down shortly before Shenfield.

Passenger Roger Ranson, who was travelling home to Diss after a business trip to London, said: 'We were going quite slowly and lost power outside Shenfield station.

'We eventually limped into Shenfield and then we were told to get on the 5.30pm train from London that stopped at Shenfield.'

But when that train reached Colchester it was delayed when another train ahead of them had a fault.

Mr Ranson, from Forncett St Mary, said: 'We had two sets of passengers to get into one train. It was like sardines in a tin. People were standing everywhere.'

He said some passengers were forced to put their bags in the train's toilets.

Passengers finally got to Norfolk 90 minutes late.

Greater Anglia's Twitter page was bombarded with messages from angry travellers, forcing the company to apologise around 50 times in three hours.

The 7.30pm Norwich to London train was also cancelled because of a broken down train between Sudbury and Marks Tey.