Police board Leeds-London train to remove passenger

The 5.30am East Coast mainline train, which was travelling from Leeds to London, stopped at Stevenage, where police boarded the train.

British Transport Police said its officers, and officers from Hertfordshire Police, had gone to Stevenage and that a man had been detained under the Mental Health Act and been taken to hospital, where he remains.

Elsewhere rail passengers endured further delays after Easter engineering work overran.

The overrun lead to delays of up to 30 minutes to services run by the First Great Western, South West Trains, Southern and CrossCountry train companies.

A Network Rail spokesman said: “We were due to complete the work at Southampton at 5am but were not able to finish until 6.37am.

“We had 27 engineering projects over the Easter weekend and this was the only one that overran.”