Ascot racegoers caught up in rail nightmare as they struggle to get home

Ascot racegoers who travelled by rail on Tuesday were among those who suffered a nightmare journey home owing to faulty trains, the situation exacerbated by a Rolling Stones concert at Twickenham.

Twickenham station itself had to be closed because of overcrowding, and at nearby Richmond people were spilling into the streets, unable even to get into the station, let alone board a train.

Those travelling back into London after the races suffered long delays. Among them was Tom Park of the Racing Post, whose experience would have been shared by other racegoers.

He said on Wednesday: “We got on the 22.10 train from Ascot to Waterloo and were delayed at various points on the journey. The train was meant to arrive into Waterloo at 11pm but we didn't get in until 1.45am, which obviously meant there were no tubes and no connections.

"We were told we would be greeted at the platform by a South Western Railway manager who would be organising taxis for us to get home.

"However, when we got to Waterloo there were 100 people waiting outside for taxis, many of them racegoers, and some had been there for three or four hours waiting for the cars that South Western claimed to have booked."

Park added: "We asked if we could get our own taxis – there were hundreds of black cabs waiting – but South Western said they could not promise we would be able to claim back money if we didn't travel by the taxis they were providing.

"I live in Romford so it's a £50 cab ride, but some people lived miles away – one man who had been to Ascot needed to get to Portsmouth!"

He continued: "People had not eaten for hours, many had run out of battery on their phones and the majority of the Ascot-goers had work in the morning.

"We got our own taxi home in the end and that was around 3am; it wouldn't surprise me if people were still waiting to get home at rush hour this morning."

Park said: "The police were outside Waterloo, acting as mediators between frustrated travellers and South Western staff – who appeared out of their depth and unhelpful – but had they not been there the situation certainly had the potential to turn ugly.

"People were trying to film the staff struggling to handle things, with the staff repeatedly asking them not to. It even took the police to ask them if they could provide people with water."

You can't always get what you want – which, in the case of Ascot racegoers, was simply to get home in a situation exacerbated by a Rolling Stones concert at Twickenham

South Western Railway issued a statement on Wednesday saying: "We would like to apologise to passengers caught up in last night’s disruption. Due to a number of incidents services into and out of Waterloo were severely disrupted.

"First, one of the lines through Clapham Junction was blocked by a train fault, and then a damaged passenger assistance alarm caused another train to block the line at Vauxhall. A points failure at Waterloo further restricted platform access, compounding the delays.

“These incidents resulted in crew and trains being severely displaced, leading to knock-on delays and disruption, with some trains terminating short of their destinations and some cancellations.”

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