TRAVEL UPDATE: Major delays and disruption on trains to Northamptonshire from London St Pancras on Wednesday evening

Rail passengers heading to Northamptonshire from London St Pancras are facing massive delays to their journeys on Wednesday evening.

Train operator East Midlands Railway says their services had been blocked blocked by a broken down freight train on the Midland Main Line just south of Bedford after 6pm .

Network Rail engineers are on site and attempting to get the failed train moved to allow services for Wellingborough, Kettering and Corby through..

But passengers are being advised to travel from London Euston to Northampton where a bus will take them onwards

An EMR spokesman said: "A broken down freight train south of Bedford blocked all lines and no trains were running between Luton and Bedford for a time.

"Unless absolutely necessary, please do not travel as your journey will be severely disrupted.

"We would ask passengers to use alternative routes if they are travelling northbound, which will be most comfortable and quickest way to get where they need to be.

"If you are travelling to Wellingborough or Kettering: You should travel to Northampton from London Euston, we are currently arranging road transport to go between Northampton, Kettering and Wellingborough."

"At present we are expecting the problem to be fixed by 8.30pm

"As soon as the problem is fixed our priority will be to get trains running to their advertised times again. We expect our advertised timetable to resume on the affected routes by 20:30