MEDWAY'S rail commuters suffered long delays on homeward-bound trains for the second successive Tuesday evening this week.

They had frustrating journeys once again when track circuits failed on Medway Bridge and lightning knocked out the Rochester signals.

Dozens of trains and thousands of commuters experienced 40 minute-plus delays as engineers worked on the points and signalling through important junction points was achieved by hand and conversations between train drivers and signal box staff.

The main problem was a massive logjam of trains queuing up to cross the Medway Bridge into Rochester.

One woman commuter said: "I pay a fortune for my annual season ticket to London every year. I have done for the past 20 years. But the service seems to be deteriorating at a rate of knots. In the 1980s we had dreadful strikes, crowded trains, delays and points failures but it was not so consistently bad as this.

"Delays like this, when you do not know what is happening, why it is happening and when you might hope to get home after a tiring day really make you feel quite ill."

A spokesman for Connex South Eastern said: "I am a commuter myself so I know how terribly upsetting, frustrating and annoying these delays can be. We are very aware that we can be responsible for spoiling our customers' home and work lives and that there is a limit to how often the boss will accept "trains bad again" as a reason for being late.

"It does seem as though the train service gets worse and worse rather than better and we can only apologise most sincerely for yet another spate of train delays this week.

"What is quite apparent is that we will have to get better at getting information to our train staff so that they can tell commuters what is happening, why it's happening, and indicate how long repairs might take."

A spokesman for Network Rail said: "Signal and points failures occurred at 5.50 pm on Tuesday. We are launching a full investigation but at this stage, it looks as though the cause might be lightning in the vicinity."