Passengers’ fury as beer thieves cause train delay
YOBS who stole booze from a buffet car delayed their fellow train passengers for more than an hour on a service that ended up reaching London three hours late.
The Virgin Trains service to London left Manchester Piccadilly at 8.21pm on Easter Sunday, and was busy with football fans returning from Old Trafford after United beat Chelsea.
However, the train was brought to a halt by railway staff following disruption at Macclesfield.
According to rail passengers, thieves stole beer from the onboard shop.
But travellers have blasted Virgin Trains due to the service being held for more than an hour following the incident.
When the service continued to London the train was held up again due to an accident at Watford Junction.
The service was due to arrive at London Euston at 11.03pm, but did not reach the capital until 1.10am. Delayed passengers were offered taxi transport home, organised by the rail operator, as the London Underground had stopped running. Dan Levene, a freelance journalist, told the M.E.N.: “There were Passenger Dan Levene engineering works between London and Manchester. There were also not half as many trains as usual, most people were standing up.
“It was full of Chelsea and Manchester United fans. Someone decided to steal stuff from the buffet carriage, which was completely unacceptable and shouldn’t be happening.
“Virgin then held up the train until they could get British Transport Police to get on the train at Macclesfield. We were held for an hour.”
Dan added: “They held up hundreds and hundreds of people. There would have been other people on the trains after us.
“There must have been 1,000 passengers disrupted because of some missing ales.”
“We were due to arrive at 11.03pm and didn’t arrive until 1.10am. It was not ideal.”
Dan said he will be applying for a refund for the journey ticket, but has not received an apology as to why the train was held for so long at Macclesfield.
It is not known if there have been any arrests following the incident at Macclesfield.
Virgin Trains and British Transport Police have been contacted by the M.E.N.