Train services in Brisbane have resumed after issues with the northern line disrupted all services on the network causing peak-hour chaos for commuters.

A number of Brisbane trains came to a standstill, causing lengthy delays for commuters.

Loading

A Queensland Rail spokeswoman said the control centre had communication issues with trains travelling north about 5:00pm.

TransLink said there was a flow-on effect disrupting all lines.

At 6:00pm, Queensland Rail said there would be a delay of up to an hour on all lines.

Buses were also being organised to transport passengers.

Buses are replacing trains from Roma Street in Brisbane. ( ABC News: Genevieve Hussey )

Executive general manager of city trains for Queensland Rail Nick King said the fault was fixed about 6:50pm.

"I would like to apologise again on behalf of Queensland Rail for the really substantial delays we caused tonight," he said.

"We're not exactly sure what caused the fault and that will go through a full review to understand that."

Loading

He said the network was ready to resume services.

"It will take — as you can imagine — quite an extensive period of time for the service to fully recover, but trains are moving," he said.

"So passengers I would ask to go back and make their way back to the appropriate platform where our staff can fully support them."

Earlier, Mr King said the problem first started about 5:10pm.

"What's happened here is that we've lost the communication capability between our control centre and our drivers which are at the front of the train," he said.

"This obviously creates a very unsafe potential situation, so we've had to take our protocols, which means bringing trains to a safe position at platforms.

"What I'd like people to know is that we are planning to move the trains that are currently held at platforms in our key stations progressively move those safely to make their journey out into the outer areas where it's not affected by the communication issues that we're facing," he said.

No trains listed on the board at Roma Street Station in Brisbane about 6:30pm. ( ABC News: Genevieve Hussey )

Mr King said the last fault like this was 20 years ago.

Commuter Chris Turner was waiting at Roma Street station when authorities announced the delay.

"It's very inconvenient — seems a bit strange that obviously everything's stopped," he said.

Loading

On the TransLink Facebook page, customers were venting about charges incurred after abandoning their travel plans.

"I just got charged $10 for sitting on a non-moving train at Central for 45 minutes ... after giving up and touching off to get a lift home - what a joke, now I'll have to waste even more of my precious time calling tomorrow for a refund, grrr, not happy!!," Tracie Payne wrote.

Bartlomiej Wojcik added: "Are there going to be automatic refunds applied for all the $10 charges which are about to be incurred by everyone currently waiting?"

Meanwhile, fares on ride-booking service Uber in the CBD were attracting surge pricing due to "high demand".