One of London’s busiest railway stations ground to a halt on Wednesday after a fire by the track triggered the evacuation of Euston.
Services were suspended and thousands of commuters delayed as a result of the blaze, which damaged signalling equipment.
By Thursday lunchtime London Overground services between the station and Harrow & Wealdstone had not yet resumed.
The incident affected customers on services including London Midland, Virgin Trains and Southern, connecting the hub with large areas of the country.
National Rail said a limited number of services were able to leave the station, which serves around 114,000 passengers each day, for a time but it was closed again because of poor lighting.
In a statement, Network Rail said services were returning to normal on Thursday morning, with engineers having worked working through the night.
It said: “Train services are returning to normal on the West Coast main line today after Network Rail engineers restored power overnight to London Euston and its signals – the railway’s traffic lights – following a cable fire at South Hampstead yesterday.
“Customers are advised to check before they travel for the latest information on nationalrail.co.uk and with their train operators. There is still no service between Harrow & Wealdstone and Euston on London Overground.
“While our engineers have restored power to Euston, they have yet to replace the 100-metre stretch of fire-destroyed, 11,000-volt cable at South Hampstead. They will do this job overnight tonight.”
Network Rail said the disruption also affected nearby terminals, such as Clapham Junction to the south west, and Milton Keynes Central in the north west.
It was for this reason that operators that do not use Euston – like Southern – were affected by the delays.
According to the Office of Rail and Road, the independent regulator, Euston is the fifth busiest station in Britain with 41.7 million entries and exits in 2015/16.