HAMPSHIRE train commuters faced massive delays yesterday morning after a broken rail caused major disruption to services.

Trains between Southampton and Waterloo ran an hour late, while rush-hour commuters had an extra hour or so added to their journeys because they had to take a bus for part of the route.

The problem was fixed by midday but at 3pm there was a signalling failure near Poole, which caused hour-long delays during the evening rush-hour.

When Railtrack noticed the broken rail near Basingstoke at 6.45am it suspended services until 7.45am and laid on buses to take passengers between Winchester and Basingstoke.

After 7.45am trains were allowed to run through the area at 5mph.

At 10.15am engineers began work on a repair and the track was closed between Winchester and Basingstoke, with buses laid on for that part of the journey until 11.50am.

Railtrack is still investigating the cause of the broken rail.

At 2.30pm yesterday the signalling problem at Poole was picked up, causing hour-long delays to services from Southampton to Weymouth.

A Railtrack spokesman said: "A fuse blew and cut power to the signals.

"That had to be replaced and tested and working time was restored at about 5pm.

"In the meantime we had to do signalling by hand."

South West Trains spokeswoman Lisa Davies said: "We apologise to customers travelling with us on these services but unfortunately we had two infrastructure problems on the lines which have meant unavoidable delays."