Rail services connecting with King’s Cross suffered cancellations and delays on Monday.
The problems stemmed from thieves stealing signalling cables, which created significant difficulties on routes between Newark Northgate, Lincoln, and Grantham throughout the day.
Both Grand Central and LNER were hit by the disruption, with those journeying between the London terminal and locations such as Edinburgh, Sunderland, and Bradford experiencing hold-ups, cancelled services, and altered routes.
While full operations have since been restored, travellers still faced waits of approximately 20 minutes as the network returned to normal.
The cables stolen were vital components for ensuring trains operate safely, and their absence caused chaos across the rail network for the entire day.
Among the affected routes were Grand Central connections linking Sunderland with King’s Cross, alongside LNER services running from Edinburgh and Newcastle among other departure points into the London station.
Customers holding LNER tickets were allowed to travel on competing operators without additional charges, with acceptance extended to Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, Great Northern, Thameslink, and Hull Trains.
The line linking Lincoln and Newark Northgate also experienced significant impact from the incident.
Buses were arranged to ferry stranded passengers onwards.
Travellers were urged to verify current service information prior to setting off and to allocate additional time for their trips.
Those who experienced disruption should retain their tickets and record specifics of their journey to assist with any compensation requests.