Railtrack is being blamed for flooding that twice brought city centre traffic to a standstill.

Flooding under the bridge at Oxford railway station made the main western route into Oxford impassable on Saturday and Monday.

Oxfordshire County Council said the chaos is down to Railtrack's failure to maintain a pump.

And it is to ask the privatised company to explain its failure to meet its responsibilities to road users.

The council's assistant principal engineer, Alan Bloodworth, said: "We are very concerned that the road had to be closed. We are angry with Railtrack for not maintaining their pump station. We are getting on to them to ensure they fulfil their responsibilities." Fire crews were called on Saturday to pump water away. Three players and the coach from Abingdon Rugby Club were among those caught up in the chaos on their way to a fixture at Milton Keynes. Abingdon ended up having to play 70 minutes of the match with just 13 men.

On Monday, two cars broke down trying to plough through the water, which rose to 3ft. And it happened on one of the worst days of traffic chaos in living memory, caused by the A34 closure between Botley and Peartree.

The county council is already locked in a bitter dispute with Railtrack over the company's plans to create a quarry at Hinksey sidings.

The council said that the newly-completed Botley Road improvements did not seek to deal with the risk of flooding, which has for decades affected the road dip under the tunnel. Mr Bloodworth said: "Our improvement scheme stopped at Cripley Road. It was never designed to look at flooding under the bridge."

The spokesman for Railtrack said: "The pumps are working OK. The water is not draining away properly. This may be associated with the work we are doing at the front of the station which is creating a lot of silt.

"We are sending an engineer to sort it out and find the root cause of the problem."

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