Still from the video by Jon Atherton

Jon Atherton was by the station at around 4.30am when a section of the track sparked and let out a loud bang suddenly.

He said, "A massive explosion happened. I nearly fell off my bike. There were four explosions."

There has been severe delays on the railway after an electricity supply failure at Eastbourne station today.

A Network Rail spokesperson said, “We are dealing with an incident in Eastbourne where a failure of the electricity supply is currently delaying trains.

“The railway here is powered by the third rail, an electrified rail on the ground, which is supported by ceramic insulators known as pots. In this case, the insulation failed so the ceramic pots cracked which explains the loud bang in the video footage.

“Fortunately there is only superficial damage, so our engineers are on site now and should be able to fix everything very soon. We are sorry for the disruption, and are still able to operate trains using two of the three platforms at Eastbourne.”

Still from the video by Jon Atherton

Southen Rail says journeys between Lewes, Eastbourne, and Hastings will be “heavily impacted” by the failure, and there will be delays until around midday.