A spokesman for London Midland said: “We have been in ongoing discussions with the unions over a period of months to talk about terms and conditions and Sunday working.

“We need to get to the bottom of why such large numbers of staff were not available and volunteering as they normally would and why we had some staff who initially volunteered and then withdrew their availability at quite late notice on Thursday afternoon. This resulted in a widescale lack of volunteers on a level that is far greater than we have ever experienced before.”

Alan Bevan, West Midlands spokesman for Railfuture, which campaigns for better train services, branded the disruptions an “unnecessary charade” for passengers.

He said: “This is not new, it was known about as long as five years ago when Central Trains were running the services.

“When London Midland took over from them just over two years ago, they knew full well there was a problem. We expected them to address this and clearly they haven’t. We heard from Bob Crow that staff want to work, but if they want to work, why don’t they?”

“It seems to be a rather shameful contrived scenario that both parties should have got together and sorted out before now.”

Normal services are expected to be resumed today.