Commuters have thronged alternate stations

On Tuesday morning there were chaotic scenes at Ealing Broadway as hundreds of passengers crowded the west London station due to the continued closure of Paddington.

The mainline station had been due to reopen in the early hours of Tuesday after four days of signalling work over the Easter break but the work was delayed by high winds.

It led to passengers travelling to Paddington from South Wales and the west having to change at Ealing Broadway or Reading, for connections into London.

At Ealing Broadway dozens of staff and security guards struggled to manage the extra passengers as they tried to change from overland services to underground lines.

Barriers were erected and cordons put in place in order to ease congestion.

It is manic down there - there are so many people Liz Ehlers Catering worker Commuters' nightmare

Commuter Paul Mansbridge said people should have been alerted to the problems in advance.

Mr Mansbridge, who had been due to meet colleagues at Paddington, said he had been told by national rail inquires there were no problems on the line.

"There should have been warnings so we did not arrange to meet at Paddington. This has made our life very difficult," he said.

By Tuesday lunchtime the crush at Ealing Broadway had eased but there were still crowd control measures in place.

Passengers queued along the stairways and walkways leading between the platforms as they tried to catch connecting trains into central London.

Rush hour

Paddington reopened just before 1400 BST on Tuesday, according to Network Rail.

Regional director John Curley apologised for the disruption to passengers.

Trains from First Great Western, Thames Trains, Virgin Cross Country, and the Heathrow Express, have been affected.

A spokesman for First Great Western said the lengthy closure of Paddington had been "very disappointing".

"We had a large number of people who had booked to return to London on Tuesday after spending Easter in Devon and Cornwall.

"We expect there will still be some disruption to services," he said.

The closure has caused huge disruption

South West Tourism chief executive Malcolm Bell said he was angered by developments.

"We were giving advice that it would be open by Tuesday. I feel that we were letting our visitors down by encouraging people, telling them they could be going back," Mr Bell said.

A Thames Trains spokesman said they were advising passengers not to travel or to delay their journeys into London.

He said: "Obviously it's nothing like the normal level of service and there's going to be a lot of disruption."

>