“Hundreds” of train passengers were left queuing for cabs to Scotland and a school had to source its own coach after rail cancellations on Monday night.
Stand-up comedian James Nokise was among the passengers ordered off the Avanti West Coast train at Preston station in Lancashire.
With many passengers still upwards of 180 miles from their destinations of Glasgow and Edinburgh, the train company arranged taxis to drive them through the night.
But staff from a Glasgow school had to order their own coach to take 50 pupils home as they were too young to travel in taxis without an adult.
Nokise told Sky News he was expecting they might be put on buses but “in my wildest imagination I didn’t think they would put us in black cabs and send us to another country”.
“It just seemed crazy,” he said.
Giving live updates on X, formerly known as Twitter, Nokise said passengers were initially told they could get on another train to Glasgow – but it turned out to be full and so left without them. The next train was also cancelled.
He wrote: “It turned out there were no more trains ‘North’ after that and, excitingly, no forthcoming information.
“Some people stood staring at the screens. Some people queued to ask the one ticket booth worker the same question everyone else was. No one knew anything.”
He said the lack of information was the most frustrating thing, and he picked up more details from fellow passengers than the train company.
‘If that sounds ridiculous, it was’
Around 9.20pm, they were told other transport had been arranged.
“Bus? An extra train? Horses? No. Taxis. For hundreds of people. To a city 3 and 1/2 hours away,” Nokise said.
Nokise was travelling to Edinburgh while other passengers were bound for Carlisle, Glasgow and Dundee.
“All of us queued to be taken away 3-7 people at a time. And if that sounds slow and ridiculous, it was.”
He told Sky News there were “old people, people with babies, people with disabilities” – and all had to wait outside in the cold.
Nokise got a black cab from Preston to Edinburgh with three other men, arriving five hours late – after a journey that involved a near-miss with a minivan, unreliable GPS and a “real motion-sickness nightmare of a road”.
School pupils ‘effectively stuck’
Staff from Greenfaulds High School found their own coach after being told they were “effectively stuck” at Preston station with no way to get their pupils home from a trip to London.
In a message to Avanti on X, the school wrote: “We have been able to resource, on our own, a coach to take us home.
“If we had not, we would have 50 young children abandoned on the streets of Preston once the station closes.
“Apologies from your wonderful staff here are kind but not enough. Very poor.”
However they praised a local takeaway who delivered 60 portions of chips to the station “for a fraction of the real cost”.
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‘We fully understand the frustrations’
After arriving at Preston at 6.30pm, they finally made it to Greenfaulds station at around 2.30am. Sky News contacted the school for comment but was told staff on the trip were off for the day after their late arrival.
An Avanti West Coast spokesperson said the cancellations were due to the West Coast Main Line being closed for more than three hours because of a track defect.
“Whilst alternative transport and overnight accommodation was sourced for most of those impacted we fully understand the frustrations of those customers whose journeys were affected, and we are extremely sorry for this.”
“Anyone who was affected by last night’s disruption will be entitled to compensation and are urged to get in contact through our normal channels to process their claim.”
