FURIOUS commuters say Bolton's transport network is failing to cope with the chaos caused by a railway shutdown.

Passengers have been left facing severe delays since a burst water pipe resulted in a section of Moses Gate bridge collapsing onto the railway below earlier this month.

With the train disruption expected to continue for a number of weeks, many people have lost patience with 'hot, dirty, and sweaty' bus replacement services.

Katie Macdonald says that her daily round trip from Bromley Cross to Manchester Victoria now takes five hours and that there are not enough buses to meet demand.

She said: "It is like being in the Third World.

"There aren't enough buses and there aren't enough staff at the station to manage what is happening.

"Yesterday, loads of people waited to get a direct bus to Victoria, but when we got on board it stopped at all of the Salford stations too — none of us were going there.

"The buses are hot, dirty, and sweaty. I can't keep doing this."

The disruption means that she is forced to get the 7.34am train from Bromley Cross to Bolton — almost an hour earlier than she would normally leave — and then take a coach to the city centre.

She is also leaving work early at 4pm, but did not arrive home until 7.15pm on Tuesday.

Ms Macdonald added: "I have already started working two days a week from home because getting to and from work is so difficult.

"It is just not practical to do this every day.

"If this is going to be the situation for the foreseeable future, then it is just not sustainable.

"There is going to be a riot soon, it is only a matter of time before it kicks off.

"The kids will be going back to school soon and everyone is coming back from their holidays, so it will only get busier and busier."

Bolton News chief photographer Gus Sivyer reported that his bus journey from Bolton station to Wigan took 90 minutes instead of the usual 40 on Tuesday.

He added: "The bus driver didn't know where he was going and had to be directed by passengers.

"It was supposed to be a direct service to Wigan, but instead we went through Hindley and Westhoughton.

"That means they sent two buses along the same route when they weren't supposed to.

"It was a really tense atmosphere, it was awful."

There are currently no trains running between Bolton and Manchester, though a reduced service is expected to resume next week.

Liam Sumpter, regional director for Northern Rail, said: “This has been a difficult week for customers in and around Bolton who were anticipating the return of rail services in their area.

“We fully understand the frustrations of our customers and are working hard to put rail replacement timetables in place to deal with the current problems.

“We had months to plan for the original engineering work at Bolton, but the burst water main caused issues at very short notice and we had little time to put contingency plans in place. As a result there were some teething problems.

“We continue to work with partners in the bus industry to iron out these problems and to provide our customers with the best possible service.

“We ask our customers to bear with us whilst colleagues from Network Rail work to resolve the extremely challenging situation on the line at Moses Gate.”

Sir David Crausby MP has campaigned for more investment in the region's rail network for years and says that, unless improvements are made, the town will lurch 'from one crisis to another'.

"The problems just never seem to end and the reason for that is that our transport systems in Bolton and the North West are massive underfunded.

"As soon as one thing goes wrong, the whole system nearly collapses.

"We need to see the kind of investment that they get in the South and until that happens we will go from one crisis to another.

"It is not good enough, especially because the road network is not good either."

Commuter Stephanie Staszko added: "It has been incredibly stressful not knowing how long, and if, I can make it to work and I dread to think how much worse it is going to get next week when schools and university students return and the traffic triples. "