Well before 7am yesterday, a car crashed at a level crossing on Fitzgerald Road at Ardeer, damaging key infrastructure and causing lengthy delays to several crucial train services.

The peak services disrupted — the 6:54am and 7.33am from Wendouree to Southern Cross Station — meant dozens of commuters heading to Melbourne arrived later than expected for the start of their working week.

Passengers on those services changed onto coaches at Rockbank and Melton.

One stranded passenger lamented being stuck at Footscray after the signal faults at Ardeer stopped her train, tweeting “ahh deer your signal faults suck”, while another mused how “catching the train to Ballarat is a bad idea”.

Another stranded commuter vented her frustration, telling the online world that her travel plans were in disarray.

“After an hour wait in the middle of nowhere, I’m on the coach,” she tweeted.

“See you in an hour.”

The hash tag #signalfailure was also created and used by a number of disgruntled passengers throughout the morning.

A V/Line spokesman told The Courier yesterday the damage caused by the car accident “didn’t take too long” to fix, with services resuming as normal later in the morning.

“(There were) delays of up to 60 minutes as we sourced buses,” he said.

Yesterday morning’s service disruptions comes after train passengers travelling from Melbourne to Ballarat on January 15 were delayed after a person was struck on the train line near Sunshine.

There was also an earlier disruption when extreme temperatures caused lengthy delays to services on the Ballarat line on January 3.

Authorities have urged anyone who comes across a traffic collision at a rail crossing site to call triple zero immediately.

For the latest train service updates, visit www.vline.com.au or call 136 196.