A MAN threatening to jump from Durham City's 100ft-high railway viaduct brought chaos to the East Coast Main Line yesterday.

Trains in the area were stopped for more than an hour late in the afternoon, causing knock-on delays elsewhere on the electrified line between London and Scotland.

The man got on to the viaduct, near the city's railway station, and threatened suicide when police and a negotiator tried to talk him down. At times he climbed over the railings and threw pieces of track ballast towards the officers.

The incident ended when he walked across the viaduct and was arrested on the other side.

One onlooker said: "He was shouting and waving his arms - I couldn't hear what he was saying - at the police.

"He kept walking from the station end into the middle and back again. At one point I thought he was going to jump off. He was hurling stones around.''

A spokesman for GNER, which runs London to Scotland expresses on the line, said trains in the area were delayed for about an hour.