Major disruption was caused after the piece of track was spotted in the Mountfield Tunnel, on the London to Hastings line, by the signalling system.

The 10.45pm service from London Charing Cross, which was due to arrive in Hastings at 12.25am, was delayed by two hours after the train ground to a halt at Robertsbridge.

Julia Taylor, a reporter at the Hastings Observer, was one of 29 passengers on the train, which stopped just after midnight.

She said: "We were at Robertsbridge for over two hours - it was a nightmare.

"Everyone was either very drunk or very tired, so there was little patience among the commuters.

"Apparently there has to be a series of phone calls up the chain of command before a replacement bus can be laid on.

"I hope Southeastern will learn lessons from this, that they need to turn an incident around much, much quicker."

The following service, the 11.37pm from London Charing Cross and the last train of the night, was forced to wait at Etchingham station with 40 people on board.

Tired and frustrated passengers were eventually picked up by replacement bus services.

Teams from Network Rail worked throughout the night to replace the track, but the work was not finished until 6.50am on Wednesday, meaning delays to morning commuter trains.

The first train of the morning, the 6.57am Hastings to London Cannon Street train, left late and a total of 15 buses were provided for replacement bus services, with a mini-bus serving Crowhurst, which has restricted access due to narrow lanes.

A spokesperson for Southeastern said: "We are very sorry that our late night and early morning services on the Hastings line via Battle were disrupted due to a track problem at Mountfield Tunnel, and for the inconvenience to passengers that this inevitably caused.

"Efforts were made to mobilise replacement bus services to stations affected by the incident - a difficult task given the late hour - but these were on the road within 35 minutes of the call going out.

"The need to effect repairs meant that some rolling stock and train crews were displaced, causing additional problems with early morning train services on the Hastings line."

A spokesperson for Network Rail, said: "We had a report of a broken rail in Mountfield tunnel between Robertsbridge and Battle and we had to get a team out to asses the situation.

"We worked to repair it overnight and did everything we could to minimise disruption with Southeastern and apologise to everyone affect by it."