RUSH hour commuters faced travel chaos as cable thieves halted trains.

People were forced to wait up to two hours for transport to and from Manchester after thieves stole 50 metres of cable from the rail line near Walkden Station yesterday morning.

Trains were cancelled between Salford Crescent and Wigan Wallgate as the thefts caused signal problems.

Rail commuters at Walkden faced huge delays as transport bosses provided bus replacement services to take them into Manchester.

Wendy Beer, aged 35, had arrived at the Walkden Road station at 7.30am, and was still waiting for a bus at 9.30am.

The solicitor, who works in Manchester city centre, said three rail replacement buses had been to Walkden, but two of these were going to Wigan and the Manchester-bound bus was too full to take the commuters at Walkden.

She said: “The buses didn’t appear until 8am and then they were too full to take us.

“We are waiting for another bus, but nobody knows where they are or when they will be coming.”

Andrew Morgalla, aged 36, said he was “frustrated” by the delay after waiting for more than an hour to get to work in Middleton, via Manchester. We live in a technological age so surely you would think they could stop this kind of thing,” he said.

British Transport Police confirmed 50 metres of cable, with 37 strands of copper in, had been stolen from a section of the line with no CCTV at 3am yesterday morning.

All services resumed after 1pm yesterday.

A spokesperson for Northern Rail said: “We had four buses at Wigan and four buses at Salford operating a shuttle service, based on the requirement expected during peak hours.

“Due to the disruption, some buses may have been more subscribed than others and we would like to apologise to any passengers who were unable to travel on their preferred service. Cable theft is an extremely dangerous crime and is one of the single biggest causes of delay to our services.”

Police are investigating.

There was further disruption for rail commuters at 10am yesterday morning, when a train broke down in Bromley Cross , causing 25-minute delays for trains travelling between Bolton and Blackburn.