Hundreds of commuters were left stranded at stations after a lorry crashed into a railway bridge today, disrupting main line services.

Network Rail said the collision, which closed the main track between Brighton and London for an hour, delayed 22 trains.

The rail authority was alerted at 8.40am and stopped all services until the bridge, in Rocky Lane, Haywards Heath, could be assessed for structural damage.

A Network Rail spokeswoman said: "We had to close both lines to railway traffic immediately, as is usual practice.

"We were able to reopen the bridge to full lane speed at 9.40am.

"We would like to state bridge bashes are the fault of lorry drivers.

"There are signs inside the cab stating the vehicle's height and signs approaching the bridge to say how high it is.

"It is the the driver's responsibility to know how high their vehicle is.

"In this incident the lorry driver did not stop.

"There has been no structural damage but bashes can cause damage that can lead to bridges being closed for repairs to be made."

Minutes after the first train cancellations, commuter Fiona Ford, 27, from Brighton, told The Argus of the frustrated scenes at Brighton station.

Miss Ford, who works in South Bank, London, said: "I'm stuck in Brighton. All the trains are cancelled and no one can get anywhere.

"They are trying to call up bus services around the crash.

"There are about 300 people waiting here. It's chaos.

"People are running around but they do not know where they are going. I'm going to be late for work - I'm toying with the idea of working from home today. It's been a nightmare with the trains recently. There have been lots of delays."

Train operators Southern said the number of commuters affected by the crash, between Haywards Heath station and Keymer junction, would have been even worse if the collision had happened two hours earlier.

A spokesman said: "We're not 100 per cent sure but we think it was a foreign lorry. It hit the bridge quite hard."