Reuters

London, Jun 27: Thousands of commuters faced long delays today after a trackside fire closed one of London's busiest railway stations.

All services in and out of King's Cross, one of the main north-south stations, were suspended yesterday after a fire broke out on a nearby building site.

Tens of thousands of commuters were forced on to replacement trains and buses or struggled through the traffic to get to work.

About 1,000 people were evacuated from their homes when fire crews set up a 200 metre exclusion zone around the site where the fire started.

The station will stay closed until later today or tomorrow because of fears gas cylinders caught in the blaze could explode.

''We are trying to minimise the impact on passengers as much as we can,'' said a spokesman for Network Rail, the body which runs Britain's rail infrastructure. ''We are waiting for the London Fire Brigade to give us the all clear.'' Firefighters in a helicopter used an infra-red camera to check if the gas cylinders had cooled down.

''There is still a danger they might explode,'' a fire brigade spokesman said. ''There is going to be major disruption today and possibly into tomorrow.'' Rail firm GNER said all its trains on the east coast mainline would start and stop in Peterborough, 80 miles north of the capital.

Commuters in London suffered more delays on the capital's underground rail network today when a signal failure closed the east-west Central Line for nearly an hour.