Thousands of rail passengers heading for Birmingham faced travel chaos this morning when trains were cancelled because of a power cut in north London.

Six Virgin Trains from Euston to New Street, which would have carried more than 10,000 passengers, were stopped between 9.30am and midday.

London Midland’s hourly services to the West Midlands are also thought to have been affected by a fault in an electrical sub station near Euston.

Network Rail engineers continue to work to resolve the issue.

A Network Rail spokesman said: “The cancellations have stemmed from power supply problems to an electrical sub station at the Acton Lane station.

“What we’ve been doing is switch the power supply to alternate sub stations.”It’s hoped the fault will be fixed by the early afternoon.

A Virgin Trains spokesman said: “There’s been some form of cable damage which Network Rail is looking to resolve.

“There’s been no trains (from Euston to New Street) since about 9.30am. Six services have been affected - we are looking at about 10,000 passengers from Virgin’s point of view.”

The one winner in the irritating affair has been Chiltern Railways which has run an interrupted service and has taken stranded Virgin passengers into the West Midlands.

It’s not yet clear if Virgin will reimburse its passengers for their Chiltern ticket.