by Harry Low

Rail passengers throughout Kent are
facing Friday traffic nightmares.

In Dover, someone trespassing on the
line at Dover Priory station means all Southeastern services are
being held at the station.

This is disrupting services between
the station and Ramsgate, Ashford International and Canterbury.

Meanwhile, at Ebbsfleet International,
rail passengers face ongoing disruption this afternoon after an
earlier power failure at the station.

Both lines through the station were
affected, causing delays, disruptions and cancellations to domestic
high speed services to St Pancras International, as well as
Eurostar services.

At one stage, trains to the continent
were running up to two hours late.

Eurostar customers have been told they can exchange their
tickets for travel on a later date.

Meanwhile, Southeastern's high speed line is experiencing
major disruption, with delays of up to 50 minutes expected until
later this evening.

Passengers are advised to allow extra
time to complete their journey and to consider using mainline
services as an alternative.

London Underground is accepting
tickets on all reasonable routes, while buses are taking people
from Ebbsfleet to Northfleet and Gravesend for onward services to
the captial.

One passenger told the Gravesend
Messenger he expected his journey to East Croydon to take almost
two and half hours longer than planned.

He said: "It would have been better if
there had been better information.

"There were no signs up at Ebbsfleet, no tannoy announcements,
just one member of staff, on his first day on the job, running
around trying to pacify everyone. It's disgusting."

Southeastern
has apologised to customers via an announcement on its website.

It reads: "Engineers are still working to remedy the situation
but it's likely services will continue to be disrupted for the rest
of today.

"If your journey has been delayed by more than half an hour you can claim compensation through our Delay Repay scheme."

The cause of the power outage is not yet known.