Were you stranded by South West Trains last night?

I’m livid with South West Trains for the callous and careless attitude demonstrated to their passengers, both at the stations and on the trains. I was lucky enough to get to Woking station finally, to join thousands of others who were simply dumped there and abandoned to continue their jiourneys some other way. Glad to see they got their priorities right and called in a police presence overkill. Pathetic. SWT should hang their heads in shame.

I was on a train heading for Southampton via Basingstoke, where I live. It left Waterloo 20 minutes late but, compared with my 3 hour 50 minute journey home on Monday, I thought that that wasn’t so bad…until the guard suddenly announced that the train was being diverted through Guildford and Havant, and that anyone travelling to Farnborough, Fleet or Basingstoke would have to get off at Guildford and go from there. The guard on train no. 1 told us to catch a train to Woking and then another to Basingstoke, but having heard horror stories from a friend of gridlock at Woking I was reluctant to do that. The station staff at Guildford advised us to catch a train to Reading and change there. I caught the Reading train and got off at North Camp where, thankfully, my husband was able to pick me up. I have submitted an online complaints form for both journeys and will see what happens…

I was stuck on the 6:05 train going back home to Southampton stuck at Woking for hours. We (a colleague and I) abandoned all hope of getting a train home and, with two fellow passengers, got a taxi to Basingstoke where we got picked up. I am ashamed to admit it but there was an old lady on my train and I wish I had tried to make sure she got home ok as I don’t like the thought of her trying to figure out what to do. Train staff were not going round checking if there were more vulnerable passengers who needed assistance like they should have done. I will be writing to the company to claim back my portion of the taxi fare, food I bought, the price of my ticket for the journey and letting them know my disgust of how they treated their customers. I would urge anyone who feels as strongly as I do to do the same.

Hi Charlotte
Good article. I left work at 5.40 and didn’t get home until after midnight. 6 hours on the train on what should normally take an hour. No information, no food, no water, and for a couple of those hours no power (so limited lighting and no fresh air). No proper information at Woking. Even when passengers were falling ill on the train they were putting out calls for food, water and doctors among the passengers to help because they had no resources on the train. The police were next to the train at this point arresting passengers that had broken out yet none of those were called to help the sick passengers. The get out clause on compensation adds insult to injury.

what happened to the old way, whereby a breakdown of a train led to a bus service – calling at all the stations on that route – was called upon?
What about this same bus service provided when there are delays and people with valid tickets are waiting at stations?

If the rules have been changed, who changed them and why?

This case is hardly encouraging people to use public transport is it!

The cause of the initial problem might have been an attempted theft of copper wire. The reason my 2 hour journey took 7 hours was SWTs total failure to manage the situation. They shouldn’t have even let the train leave Waterloo.