Rail passengers experienced "major disruption" on Friday morning after a fault in the signalling system in Bedfordshire.

National Rail has said it was expecting the Thameslink service between Brighton and Bedford to be disrupted until at least 1pm.

Tickets will be accepted on Great Northern, South West Trains and Southern services via any reasonable route, buses between Elephant and Castle and Elstree and Borehamwood, and the London Underground by any reasonable route.

Services running between London St Pancras and Nottingham, Leicester and Derby in the East Midlands, as well Sheffield, were also likely to be disrupted.

National Rail has warned passengers services may be cancelled or delayed by up to 90 minutes.

At 9.30am, Network Rail said it had fixed the fault, which was on the line between Luton and Harpenden, but delays were set to continue.

A Network Rail spokesman said: "Overnight we experienced a signalling failure between Harpenden and Luton.

"Our engineers have now resolved the issue, but trains through the area will be severely disrupted throughout the morning while we get services back to normal.

“We advise passengers to check their journeys in advance this morning, and thank them for their patience while we return to a normal service."