Road and rail chaos hit Britain today with snow and flash flooding causing major headaches for Bank Holiday travellers.

Thousands of rail passengers endured delays of more than six hours early today when flash flooding hit train services travelling through the Midlands.

Some villages in Warwickshire were cut off by flooding and a 40-mile tailback built up last night on the M40.

Worst affected areas included Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and around Milton Keynes where trains were stranded for hours overnight.

Angry passengers were eventually arriving at destinations in the early hours while other travellers faced a number of cancelled services.

Passengers on Virgin trains from London to Manchester were stranded in the Oxfordshire countryside today waiting for water levels to subside.

Attempts to offload passengers on to coaches were called off when police advised the firm that nearby roads were impassable due to the floods.

The company later apologised to customers but said the problems were caused by the weather.

Many roads were impassable on the first day of the Easter break and police warned drivers to use caution - or not go out at all.

The AA said treacherous driving conditions are expected to continue and appealed to the 10 million motorists expected to take to the road over the four-day Easter break to take extra care.

Heavy snow fell on parts of Scotland, with the Glasgow area particularly badly hit. The M77 outside the city was under five inches of snow.

In Buckinghamshire, a RAF helicopter was called in to rescue night anglers trapped by floods.

The rescue helicopter was sent to a lake at Little Linford, near Milton Keynes, where ten anglers were trapped on an island. The wintry weather is being caused by an area of low pressure in the Channel, combined with the North East wind.

Forecaster Mike Mason, at Leeds Weather Centre, said today: "It's going to be pretty grotty. Today will be cold, like yesterday, not getting above 7C, but the raw north east wind will make it feel like it's freezing.

"There's been snow in the Midlands and some sleet and snow in the Sheffield area. We can expect outbreaks of rain across the region, and sleet and snow on the high ground."

A spokesman for AA Roadwatch, in Leeds, said: "There are no roads closed, but drivers should take extra care on the smaller trans-Pennine routes. It could get busy this afternoon, though a lot of people will have driven up yesterday."

Meanwhile, some of the county's attractions were hoping to welcome large numbers of visitors by providing welcome shelter from the showers.

A spokeswoman at the Scarborough Sealife Centre, Scalby Mills, Scarborough, said: "We usually benefit from bad weather if people are already in the area."

WEATHERMAN WALKS THE WOLDS

Weatherman Ian McCaskell keeps a watch on storm clouds during filming in Ryedale when he showed off one of his favourite walks for the television cameras. Mr McCaskill braved the weather for the BBC-2 regional programme Out and About, talking to presenter Tony Capstick as he walked from North Grimston to Wharram Percy, taking in part of the Wolds Way, and going to Birdsall. The filming will be included in the first programme of the series, at 7.30pm on April 30 on BBC2. The series will continue each Thursday until June 18.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.