A rogue foil balloon stopped trains from running to schedule earlier this week as it became snarled up on overhead power lines.
Foil balloons have got plenty of form for disrupting power lines in America, but have rarely caused such disruption in the UK.
This week, however, commuters trains were reduced to a crawl on the Virgin Trains East Coast main line on the morning of Monday 13 November, 2018.
A tweet from the official Virgin Trains account read: ‘Due to a metallic balloon being caught on the overhead electric wires between #Retford and #Doncaster, trains have to run at reduced speed on some lines.’
There have been calls to ban foil balloons in some US states due to the problems they have the potential to cause.