A train operating company has issued an apology after fires caused south Essex passengers travel issues over the past 24 hours.

The firm has apologised to the customers caught up in disruption on the c2c network over the past 24 hours as it said numerous issues have "caused significant challenges".

In the late afternoon yesterday (October 18) c2c had a cable fire at a set of signals in the Grays area.

This meant it could only run services on the mainline and was unable to serve stations on the Tilbury line beyond Ockendon.

Replacement buses were arranged but extensive traffic issues caused by protesters at the QE2 Bridge meant getting these to stations took much longer than expected.

Ticket acceptance was also arranged with transport providers in the area including Greater Anglia, though any road transport remained impacted.

Once the issue was fixed, services were back to normal just after 9pm before disaster struck again.

As the service was started on this morning (October 19), a fire caused damage to the overhead electric wires between Upminster and West Ham, cutting off the power supply.

This meant trains were unable to move out of the depot at East Ham and many early trains were delayed, disrupted or cancelled.

Rob Mullen, managing director of c2c, has said today: "We are really sorry to all of our customers who were caught up in these incidents in the last 24 hours, we know they have caused extensive disruption to your journeys.

"We are urgently reviewing the incidents with our operational teams to ensure we make any changes necessary to ensure this does not happen again."

If you were caught up in disruption, claim delay repay at c2c-online.co.uk/help-feedback/delay-repay.