Rail bosses are blaming fare dodgers after a stampede for cut-price tickets led to chaos at Brighton station.

Martin Walter, marketing manager of Thameslink: "We have incurred a little bit of a problem" (2'21")

Police called the situation "absolute bedlam" when 3,000 people turned up to buy special £1 tickets to London on Sunday.

Queues reached more than 10-deep around the East Sussex station, stretching more than 200 yards down Queens Road as passengers waited up to two hours for tickets.

Police calmed passengers as they waited for the crowded Thameslink Bank Holiday service, put on to raise cash for charities.

Thameslink managing director Euan Cameron blamed fare-dodgers for clogging the service.

He said: "It seems that some took advantage of going to Brighton without donating the £1 fare. This caused problems for genuine users."

Bargain offer

A Thameslink spokesman played down the situation. He said: "At Brighton passenger loading was brisk but containable.

"There was an overcrowding problem between about 7pm and 10pm on Sunday and passengers were waiting a maximum of two hours for a train at Brighton.

"There have been queues outside the station all afternoon but the situation started to get difficult later when the majority of people wanted to travel back to London."

The bargain offer was available on routes between London and Brighton, and north of the capital towards Bedford.

Thameslink said around 20,000 of the £1 tickets were snapped up - with all the money going to local charities - before officials decided to stop selling them in an attempt to prevent overcrowding.

BBC Radio 5 Live's travel expert Simon Calder: delays dogged my journey (1'30")

Meanwhile, the first passengers on Britain's newest railway service, between central London and Heathrow on Monday morning were told to take the Tube instead or endure long delays after a series of hitches.

The £440m fast link service has been plagued by problems including a collapsed tunnel which put the project back a year.

Some passengers who were expecting a 15-minute trip between Britain's busiest airport and Paddington station, took an hour and a half for the journey.

Airports authority BAA, which runs the service due formally to open next month, blamed teething problems.

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