A RAIL company has apologised to residents in Darlington after replacement coaches, used as an alternative to trains during engineering work, caused chaos by blocking their street.

Homeowners were left fuming on Saturday when access to Pensbury Street was obstructed by coaches picking up passengers from Bank Top Station.

Jane Elliott, one of those affected, said she was unable to leave the street by car and was concerned for the safety of residents.

"Network Rail was carrying out engineering works on the rail line so replacement buses were sent to pick up passengers," she said.

"The work has been ongoing for a few weeks, which is fair enough, but my problem is that the coaches have been blocking my street off.

"On a Saturday, this end of town is really busy and it was chaos at the weekend.

"The buses are parking on double yellow lines and causing an obstruction. Residents cannot get into or out of the street.

"There is going to be a serious accident if something isn't done about it.

"Everybody has been complaining about it."

Mrs Elliott said the station car park could be used to ease the problem or coaches could park outside the cattle market.

GNER organised the replacement coach service because the main line between York and Newcastle and the branch line at Bishop Auckland were both closed for engineering work.

A spokesman for the company said GNER, Virgin and regional services were affected.

He said: "There was more extensive engineering work last weekend taking place than is proposed in the future.

"There was also a third problem because there had been some vandalism early on Saturday morning south of Darlington, so services to Middlesbrough were affected for a time.

"There were a lot of trains to replace with buses and, therefore, there were a lot more parked on Victoria Road than there would have been normally."

GNER employed transport management and coach operator Fraser Eagle to hire the coaches and staff.

"We appreciated there was congestion," said the spokesman.

"From our point of view, we are very sorry if it caused inconvenience to residents.

"There is still some limited engineering work required in the future but, hopefully, they won't be as bad."