Over the Easter weekend, a train became so overcrowded that people had to disembark from their journey to get a later train. The journey has since been branded the ‘train from hell’ by angry passengers. Many passengers took to Twitter to share photos of carriages crammed with people, some of whom were even lying on the floor.
The incident occurred during a five and a half hour journey between London Paddington and Penzance, Cornwall. One passenger described it as ‘chaos and a safety hazard’ on social media.
Passenger laying on floor by my seat on massively overcrowded @GWRUK train to Cornwall – chaos and safety hazard pic.twitter.com/IfPb9YoCZd
— Eve S Conway (@EveSConway) March 25, 2016
A fellow passenger, formerly the director of the BBC World Service said that the overcrowded train left pregnant women fighting to use the toilet, before branding the service ‘shambolic’ on Twitter. He also claimed that management on the train were not taking accountability, instead ‘hiding in the bunker’.
Passengers who were travelling on the 10am Good Friday service were asked by Great Western Railway staff to get off at Plymouth for ‘comfort and safety’ reasons. The staff were supported by the British Transport Police. The train company explained the chaos by stating that two services which had terminated at the station meant that too many people were waiting on the platform to board the later service, resulting in overcrowding.
The spokesman for Great Western Railways said that the train was ‘particularly busy’ on Good Friday, so passengers were asked to use a later service which had been put on to cope with additional numbers of passengers.
The overcrowded train was followed by a high speed service with eight carriages to cope with passenger demand.
If you were travelling on the overcrowded train, you could be eligible to receive a refund. For more information, contact First Great Western.
