Thousands of passengers faced a second day of delays on Sunday after high winds blew freight containers across a busy main line in northern England, train operators said.

Virgin Trains, which runs services between London and Scotland, said there would be "serious disruption" to journeys. Buses replaced trains from Preston to Glasgow.

Network Rail said five containers came off a train on Saturday in the Cumbrian village of Shap, one of the highest points on the West Coast Main Line.

They damaged signals, overhead electric cables and some sleepers, a spokesman for the rail infrastructure firm said.

A Virgin Trains spokesman said: "We should be back running a pretty normal service by Monday morning."

Trains between London Euston and Preston are unaffected by the line closure in the north, he added.

In an unrelated incident, two containers were blown off a train on the same line in Buckinghamshire on Saturday as severe winds battered large parts of the country.

Network Rail said the second accident was on a service run by freight company Jarvis travelling between Tring and Bletchley, about 30 miles northwest of London.

Service updates will appear on its Web site at: here#current Emergency services received scores of calls as severe winds hit large parts of Britain, felling trees and bringing down chimneys and fences.

Two huge cranes at the Felixstowe port in Suffolk were damaged after a ship broke free from its moorings.

In East Yorkshire, a driver needed hospital treatment after part of a tree landed on their car. A lorry overturned in high winds on the A1 near Sedgefield in County Durham.