Rail passengers travelling from Norwich to London faced delays of up to 45 minutes for most of the day today due to a problem with the overhead wire at London Liverpool Street station.

Trains on the Norwich to London Liverpool Street Line were terminated at Stratford, meaning that passengers had to take crowded London Underground trains into central London.

All trains operating out of London Liverpool Street were affected.

The problems started at around 7am. A spokesman for National Express initially said normal service should be resumed by 3.30pm, but the overhead line problems have continued until around 6pm. Trains between Lowestoft and London Liverpool Street have been running between Lowestoft and Ipswich only.

There have also been delays between Norwich and Liverpool today.

The 3.52pm departure for Liverpool has been cancelled and the 4.13pm arrival from Liverpool was expected half an hour late. The 6.13pm arrival from Liverpool and Nottingham and the 6.57pm departure to Nottingham were also cancelled.

A spokesman for Stagecoach, which operates East Midlands Trains, said: 'The current delays are the result of earlier disruption to services on the Norwich to Liverpool route this morning when the freezing weather conditions affected parts of the track.

'We are working hard to minimise delays for passengers and would like to apologise to customers for any inconvenience this may have caused.'