COMMUTERS faced a second day of chaos on the railways today after Birmingham's main station was virtually closed yesterday by damaged powerlines.

Passengers leaving Worcester Shrub Hill for New Street faced at least an extra hour of travel time when services were diverted through Kings Norton.

Passengers were being urged to check for delays before starting their journeys.

The damage was discovered at New Street station just before 6am yesterday.

Nearly all of Central Trains to and from the station were cancelled throughout the day, but the majority had returned to normal by the evening's rush hour.

Shuttle buses ferried passengers from affected stations to Birmingham Moor Street.

"It has just been one complete nightmare," said one Worcester commuter, who asked not to be named.

"We were actually in a train queue waiting to be dropped off at the station.

"In the station, there was no information, no one telling you were to get buses from. When I eventually found one I gave up waiting, because the queues were just so long."

Michelle Conaboy, a spokeswoman for Network Rail, confirmed the cause of the problem was not known.

"There was damage to the overhead power lines. We still don't know the cause, our engineers are still investigating at the moment," she said.

A spokeswoman for Central Trains apologised for any inconvenience caused to commuters, but said the problem was out of the company's hands.