Train company says sorry after fans faced tough journey home
TRAINLINE company Chiltern Railways has apologised for the mayhem caused for Sky Blues fans who tried to get back to Coventry after the championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium on May 27.
Some Sky Blues fans shared their experiences, with one fan claiming that the chaos left people ‘vomiting and urinating themselves.’ Another fan had to pay £320 for a taxi ride home from London Euston to Binley after experiencing cancellations and delays.
Many fans took to social media to speak about their experiences of the aftermath, although not all the experiences were negative.
Chiltern Railways said that ‘expected levels of crowding’ and ‘unplanned disruption’ due to three train cancellations at Euston were to blame for the chaos, although they clarified that Chiltern Railways did not cancel any services from Wembley after the match. The operator also worked with other train operators before the match to try and ease crowding.
Sarah Mcphilimey said: “Euston was awful. We eventually got on a train after ours was cancelled, but stood in a packed aisle all the way home.”
Ronnie Rondog added: “Our coach drove off and left loads of us there. My 7 year old son was in tears. So many friends got Ubers and we didn’t get home until 1am. Absolute shambles.”
Mark Cooper had to get the bus after his train to Coventry was cancelled: “Feel the pain. I managed to get on the train, but got off at Banbury to get the connecting train to Coventry. As the train pulled out, we were told it had been cancelled, so had to get the bus.”
Christine Baggott added that her daughter got stuck at Watford and had to wait 4 hours and said: “My daughter couldn’t get on the train as it was very full and she had to wait 4 hours at Watford. She didn’t get home until 2:40am.”
We approached Chiltern Railways for a comment, and the service has apologised for the inconvenience caused to passengers after the match.
A Chiltern Railways spokesperson said: “We apologise ticket sales exceeded capacity on our services. The national ticketing system is open and flexible, and while this usually benefits customers, it also means that we are unable to take services off-sale. Chiltern Railways do not pre book tickets for trains as there is no mandatory reservation system on the trains.
“Our priority has to be keeping customers safe and given the amount of tickets sold and the expected levels of crowding, there was a high risk that some ticket holders may not have been able to return from the stadium with Chiltern Railways after the match.
“Therefore, we worked in collaboration with other train operators to organise ticket acceptance on services from Euston, to give customers an alternative option, this was promoted via social media after the match along with information about Chiltern Railway’s queuing system at Wembley to help customers join the right queue for their destination for Chiltern trains. Unfortunately, there was some unplanned disruption at Euston with three trains being cancelled due to a points failure and this was rectified by the operator. Chiltern Railways did not cancel any services from Wembley after the match and diverted some services to Banbury to help our customers with their journey home.
“We appreciate that many rely on our services to attend events important to them and the communities we serve, but in this occasion, it was necessary to intervene and to offer some alternative travel options for our customers. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.”