RAIL passengers travelling to London were held up for more 30 m inutes after a 27-year-old woman got on to the tracks at Rochester.

The woman, from the Gravesend area, climbed on the tracks and began walking through the tunnel which leads to Chatham Railway Station.

Rail staff immediately turned off the power to the line and called the police.

Trains were halted on that stretch of line and passengers had to wait on their trains at the point where they had stopped.

One passenger stuck at Gillingham for about 30 minutes was Ian Read, who was travelling from Faversham to Victoria.

He said: “I asked a guard what had happened and he said someone was on the line and they had to turn the power off. It seemed like ages until we started to move off again, and then there was absolutely hundreds of people trying to get on the train at Chatham.”