Commuters were left furious after more than 20 Southeastern trains into London were cancelled or delayed during the Thursday morning rush hour - a day after the rail company was rated among the UK's worst.

Services from stations between Ashford International and the capital were held back for around an hour and a half after overrunning Network Rail engineering works left lines without power.

UPDATE: Under-fire Southeastern hits out at Network Rail after rush-hour trains disruption

Travellers arrived at stations along the route to find all peak-time trains into London cancelled.

Some passengers faced a two-hour wait for their next service.

The disruption comes just a day after new research revealed Southeastern was one of the worst ranked train lines for passenger satisfaction.

A Southeastern spokesman said services were back up and running before 8am, following the power issue between Maidstone East and Swanley, but commuters could still expect "knock-on" delays through the morning.

He said: "Services were affected by power supply problems due to overrunning engineering works, which were supposed to be finished on time today.

"They are back to normal now, but there will be knock-on delays.

“We advise passengers to check updates online."

Passengers travelling from London towards Slade Green can also expect further disruption due to a signalling problem at Charlton.

Commuters took to social media to vent their frustration.

Sue Jones (@SueJ1973) tweeted: "@Se_Railway so, my train is late every day so far this year, & today, for variety, you cancel it! Shocking service as per usual..."

Charlotte Goodman wrote: “There have been delays almost every day on my train for the last two weeks!! This is ridiculous!”

Paul Maidment said: “Another day at Blackheath station & hundreds of people wait in vain for a train on time to London. Just a diabolical service.”

A Transport Focus survey revealed that only 75 per cent of Southeastern passengers considered themselves satisfied with their services, closely following Thameslink, which had the lowest proportion of satisfied customers at 73 per cent.

Third worst was Southern, coming in third at 78 per cent.

But despite the poor ratings for all three south England lines, the survey showed an overall rise in the score nationally - from 73 per cent last year to 76 per cent this year.

First Hull Trains rated the highest at 97 per cent customer satisfaction.

The Southeastern spokesman added: “We apologise to passengers who were affected by the overrunning engineering work between Maidstone East and Otford earlier today.

"Network Rail worked hard to hand back the line as quickly as they could and the line was re-opened at 7am.

"However, services via Swanley were disrupted until around 8am.

"We advise passengers who were disrupted by more than 30 minutes to claim compensation under our Delay Repay compensation scheme.”