London commuters have been hit by Friday morning misery on rail and Tube routes.
Signalling problems, a track trespass and engineering work contributed to delays across the capital - which came on the day rail regulators slammed infrastructure chiefs Network Rail for recent poor performance.
London Midland and Virgin Train services into London Euston were among routes affected by this morning's hold ups.
There were also delays on London Overground services between New Cross Gate and Crystal Palace/West Croydon due to a track fault at Brockley in south east London.
On the Tube there was no service between Moorgate and Barking on the Hammersmith and City line as delays hit the rest of the line thanks to a signal failure at Whitechapel, which also hit the District and Circle lines.
Another signal failure, at Queensway, led to delays on the Central line. Some Southeastern services through Kent were delayed due to signalling problems.
It came as poor service on some of London's busiest commuter routes sparked an investigation by regulators into the performance of Network Rail.
Reliability on Southern and Thameslink routes, hit partly by work ongoing work at London Bridge, was "below requirements", the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) said.
The overall rate of trains running on time also slipped below Network Rail's 92.5 per cent target by almost three points.
Thameslink passengers have recently had to contend with upheaval caused by long-term work at London Bridge, while those travelling with Southern have experienced track and signalling problems.
All of which came after a miserable festive-period passengers in north London because of overrunning engineering work at King's Cross and Paddington.
Publishing a report on NR's performance for 2014/15 , the ORR said NR had not met a number of its enhancements programme delivery targets, with some projects facing delays.
The company has also delivered far less work than it planned for the upkeep of the rail network.
ORR chief executive Richard Price said: "NR has made a slow start in delivering on its enhancements and performance targets for CP5 (the period from 2014/15 to 2018/19) and we have asked it to demonstrate how it plans to get back on schedule to deliver on its commitments to 2019.
"The company is also falling short of its own targets on completing renewals works for the upkeep of the rail network. While there is good performance on the East Coast main line and the freight sector, overall reliability on some routes such as the Southern, Thameslink and Scotland routes are below requirements.
"We are investigating NR's performance improvement plans and delivery of enhancements."
Responding to the ORR report, Network Rail accepted there were shortcomings and in part blamed decades of under-investment.
"We have recognised the scale of the challenge and have been openly reporting performance data regularly," said a spokesman.
"There are clearly opportunities to improve following decades of under-investment in the rail network. However, it is worth highlighting that we operate the safest passenger network in Europe and the railway asset reliability is the best it has ever been."
Additional reporting by PA
