Hundreds of trains have been cancelled or delayed owing to staff shortages blamed on the World Cup and hot weather.

Great Western Railway (GWR), Northern and CrossCountry services were disrupted on Sunday as fewer train crews than normal agreed to work.

There was a chance that England could have been playing in the World Cup final at 4pm, until the team lost on Wednesday.

GWR issued a statement on Friday warning of disruption because there would be a “significantly reduced number of available staff” due to factors including the World Cup final, the spell of warm weather and the start of the school holidays.

But a spokesman for the operator said on Sunday that more staff than expected had been available to work, meaning about 95% of services were running and 35 out of 850 trains were cancelled.

Full refunds are available for holders of advance tickets or passengers can use tickets on Monday instead.

Northern announced more than 170 services would be cancelled on Sunday. The operator said it was “likely” more services would be scrapped, with Cheshire, Lancashire and Greater Manchester faring the worst.

A spokesman said “many Northern staff have made themselves unavailable for work” on Sunday. Staff contracts mean they do not have to work Sundays if they provide seven days’ notice.

The Northern spokesman apologised and said: “Unfortunately we have so far had to cancel more than 170 services across our network and it is likely more will be cancelled as we continue to plan our services.”

CrossCountry trains were also disrupted due to a shortage of conductors.

The Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, and his Liverpool counterpart, Steve Rotheram, recently criticised Northern for causing “extreme chaos” on networks for “far too long”.

Hundreds of services have been cancelled by Northern, Thameslink and Great Northern since schedules were modified on 20 May.

Thameslink and Great Northern introduced a third new timetable in two months on Sunday. The latest change will still result in some services being cancelled in advance, but rail bosses hope the number of on-the-day cancellations will be reduced.

An interim timetable was introduced on 4 June in which about 6% of daily services were removed, but reliability has continued to struggle.

The GTR chief executive, Charles Horton, announced he would resign over the delays and cancellations.