Hoardes of Southeastern passengers wait at St Pancras last night. Picture: Martin Vacher

Kent's rail services have been severely affected by the wild weather.

Commuters heading to London are being told to expect long waits because of a fallen tree.

The line between Ashford International and Maidstone East was blocked this morning.

The track was cleared by about 8.30am, but a backlog of trains meant services were still heavily delayed.

It comes after Southeastern passengers faced waits of up to four hours at St Pancras last night after an earlier lightning strike affected signalling.

Services between St Pancras International and Ashford International as well as Faversham were affected by the problem.

Martin Vacher, 23, was one of those hit with long delays as he struggled to return to Ramsgate from the capital.

He described angry scenes at St Pancras as hundreds-strong crowds thronged the station - some of them waiting for four hours.

Mr Vacher said: "We could well understand that this was an incident out of Southeastern's hands.

"However, it was their lack of apology, correspondence and seemingly redundant option of an alternative or contingency plan that had crowds up in arms.

Meanwhile, services between Tunbridge Wells and Hastings were suspended by a derailed freight train in Robertsbridge, East Sussex, on Wednesday.

A crane was called in and moved the locomotive (pictured above) before the line re-opened at about 4pm today.

Have you been affected by the rail chaos? Leave your comments below.