Rail passengers travelling between London and Norwich faced major disruption tonight as a result of overhead line problems.

National Express East Anglia (NXEA) services between London Liverpool Street and Norwich were affected by line fault which caused disruption to services in the Ilford area for much of yesterday evening.

As a result of the overhead line problems trains between London Liverpool Street and Shenfield were delayed by up to 50 minutes.

Trains towards London Liverpool Street were unable to call at Seven Kings while trains from London Liverpool Street were unable to call at Ilford and Manor Park.

A spokesman for NXEA said the problems occurred as a result of a 'piece of overhead line equipment which came loose' although was unable to say whether it was as the result of vandalism.

He said: 'There were some quite significant delays on services into Norwich. In broad terms it was between 40 and 45 minutes since about 5.30pm/6pm.'

Buses were put in place at strategic points on the line, including Ipswich, in case passengers needed to complete their journey by road, but it is not thought they were needed.

The spokesman apologised for the delays but said everything was done to ensure disruption was kept to a minimum.

Repairs were due to be carried out on the piece of line overnight to ensure that services could resume as normal this morning.