Passengers delayed during a day of disruption on the King's Lynn to London railway line caused by overrunning engineering works have been told they will be entitled to compensation if they bought a ticket, regardless of the circumstances.

First Capital Connect's (FCC) 'delay repay' policy states that it only usually pays out to people delayed if they bought a ticket in advance of disruption notifications.

But yesterday afternoon the firm, which operates trains from King's Lynn, Watlington, Downham Market and Ely to London, said compensation would be available to all customers who bought tickets and experienced delays of more than 30 minutes when engineering works overran on Tuesday, causing several trains to be cancelled.

A FCC spokesman said the company made the decision to be fair to customers affected by the disruption.

Several morning peak-time trains from King's Lynn were cancelled when Network Rail encountered issues with its signalling system between Alexandra Palace and Finsbury Park, where it had been working over the bank holiday.

'Because of this we were unable to access the depot at Hornsey to access over 25 of our trains, which placed a major restriction to the access to our fleet of trains and led to widespread displacement of rolling stock and drivers,' a FCC statement said.

It has since asked Network Rail to conduct a full inquiry into what happened 'so that lessons can be learned and a reoccurrence prevented'.

Under its passenger charter, FCC said it would pay the value of 50pc of the cost of a single ticket or 50pc of the cost of either the outward or return portion if a journey is delayed by between 30 and 59mins.

If a journey is delayed by an hour or more, FCC will more than double that amount. A season ticket holder's compensation is calculated using the proportional daily cost of the ticket.

Those who want to claim for compensation must do so within 28 days of the date of the delays. For a form, visit www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk