Rail passengers were evacuated after a tree fell on the line Stephen Huntley

THOUSANDS of commuters were hit by rush hour delays after a tree fell onto power cables near Chelmsford.

Hundreds were stuck on trains for three hours and others were evacuated and forced to wait beside rails.

Services to Chelmsford and Norwich were suspended after the tree fell onto lines as a train passed underneath at 4.15pm, forcing power to the line to be cut.

As queues built up at Liverpool Street station, police were forced to close some entrances to manage the increasingly irate crowds.

Sonia Elks, 26, from Colchester, said she was stuck on a train for almost three hours. She said: “It was utter chaos. People were furious. I've never seen a train so busy.”

Jessica Domain, 26, from Braintree, said: “The staff were trying to slowly filter people into the station so there wouldn't be a crush but people were getting pretty angry.”

"It was utter chaos. People were furious"

Kate Greengrass, 26, also from Braintree, said: “The station got completely packed as the crowds kept coming and the staff had to shut the entrance. None of the station staff were telling anybody what was happening.”

A spokesman for National Express East Anglia said: “The tree blocked both lines through Chelmsford for approximately three hours as Network Rail engineers had to get to the site, remove the tree and repair the power lines.

“It caused a considerable backlog of trains and delays. A number of trains were queued up and we do apologise for people who were caught up in that and who had to wait until the line was cleared.”

Fire crews helped engineers to remove the tree, while replacement bus services to Shenfield and Witham were put on to reduce the overcrowding.

A British Transport Police spokesman said: “We were called to Liverpool Street Station to deal with crowd control after a tree hit power lines. Staff closed one entrance at Bishopsgate but by 6.48pm all entrances had been reopened.”

When the line reopened at 7.15pm passengers faced delays of up to 90 minutes. All services had returned to normal by this morning.