Passengers say they were made to endure a “nightmare” rail journey after the power went out on a Northern train, leaving them in dark carriages at a standstill for two and a half hours.
Some claimed that the experience was made worse by “drunk” fellow travellers, while others were forced to “urinate on the floor” during the hours-long wait.
The incident occurred during a Liverpool to Wilmslow via Manchester Piccadilly service at 9.30pm on 7 May.
At around 10.15pm, the train ground to a halt, with all the elecricity seeming to be cut off, according to one passenger.
The unnamed traveller told Manchester Evening News that passengers were left in the dark both literally and metaphorically, claiming that “no one announced what was going on for the duration of the stop”.
He also alleged that the toilets were flooded and unusable.
“Women could no longer use it, men were p***ing all over the floor and sink, the toilet door shut on people in the toilet trapping them for sometime,” he said.
“Passengers ended up wanting answers, but there was only one [member of] train staff. When she made an appearance after an hour, she had only one update which was that no one was answering at the other end, so we were all panicked.”
He added that there was also a newborn baby in the carriage who was crying.
Another train came to evacuate passengers at around 12.30am, and they were forced to “climb out of the train using ladders”.
The man claims this service didn’t leave for another 30 minutes, and terminated at Manchester Victoria at around 1.27am.
“All passengers [catching] connecting trains were completely lost,” he said; he didn’t make it back to his home in Stockport until 2.15am in a group taxi, describing the experience as “hell”.
Northern apologised to customers for the experience, attributing it to an “overhead power supply”.
Chris Jackson, regional director for Northern, said: “I apologise to all customers on the 21.30 Liverpool to Wilmslow service on Saturday night. We know this was a busy train with people trying to get home for the evening – and unfortunately the loss of power was not connected to an issue with the train, but with the overhead power supply.
“Despite repeated attempts by the driver to get the train moving again, it was not possible to restore power and a recovery train was dispatched from Manchester Victoria.
“Due to the remote location that the service encountered this problem – and having first had to negotiate a safe passage for that recovery train across the network – it was not possible to reach the passengers and complete a controlled evacuation for some time.
“Upon arrival in Manchester, onward transport was provided to get passengers to their final destination.”
