LONDON commuters are used to odd excuses for their trains being late, but how many will have experienced today’s explanation from train operator National Express East Anglia that cows on the line caused widespread delays into Liverpool Street station?


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Quite a few, is the answer.

“Passengers are generally not interested in who is to blame for delays,” said Anthony Smith, head of consumer group Passenger Focus, after a similar incident earlier this year in the Midlands.

“However, they would be surprised to hear that in 2011, cows on the line would feature in Network Rail’s top five reasons for service disruption and delays.”

Back in 1984, 13 people died when a train travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow hit a cow and was then derailed.

In today’s incident, one train was stuck on London-bound tracks for an hour before surrendering to the cattle menace and returning to base.

National Express East Anglia say that the knock-on effects of the cow-chaos are likely to continue until this afternoon’s rush hour, with trains to and from both Liverpool Street and Stansted airport affected.

(For avoidance of doubt, the photo is an example of a cow-on-the-line incident. It is not of today’s unhappy herd. Moo.)