Coventry fan says train chaos led to ‘vomiting and urinating themselves’ on way back from Wembley

A Coventry fan says train chaos led to ‘vomiting and urinating themselves’ on the way back from the playoff final at Wembley.

Train passenger Darren Robinson expressed his frustration as rail services became got extremely overwhelmed last Saturday while left shocked at the lack of organisation on the trains.

He adds that train cancellations caused ‘mayhem’ at London Euston with fans seen leaping over barriers which led to panic from families with kids, the disabled and the elderly.

Members of the SBA that suffered the shambles of multiple cancelled @LNRailway trains at Euston should complain directly to them here – https://t.co/ohRGT9Pdl3 – Dangerous situation for 1000s of @Coventry_City & @LutonTown fans, health and safety seriously compromised! #PUSB pic.twitter.com/4mfG9ncyR5

— Pete Ballinger (@BrandonBees) May 28, 2023

Speaking to CoventryLive, Darren said: “We arrived at Euston Station at 8.45pm, plenty of time before the scheduled trains were due to leave. We went to get on the train which I believe was the 9.08pm, but by the time we got to the platform fans were already being turned away as the train was full which left thousands of fans looking for the next train.”

Darren on trying to get on board the next train only to see a huge queue of people waiting to get back home: “It started to get larger as people also were finding out this was the next train out of Euston to Coventry.

“Two later trains to Coventry had already been cancelled for some reason and soon there were thousands of people in the queue. Fans jumped the barriers to get to the train then followed by a mass surge onto the platform.”

An announcement was made over the tannoy to say the train wouldn’t be in service, leading to police escorting everyone back to Euston.

Darren managed to get onto the next train only to see the trouble playing out from his window.

He said: “We got on the train and actually got seated to watch events unfold out the window and the queue within a minute was with thousands of fans backed up behind the barrier. Officers arrived and formed a chain in front of the barrier with linked arms. I cannot understand why it was closed or why they did not start to allow some people through slowly.

“It was something out of a zombie movie.

“Young children were crying and had been separated from their families, disabled people were confused, and elderly people were panicking. Absolutely disgusting with zero organisation at Euston Station. It was absolute chaos and panic, so lucky no one was hurt or even worse in the mayhem.”

Darren adds that he saw people ‘vomiting’ on the train due limited space while others had no choice but to ‘urinate on themselves’ as the toilets were locked. He said: “We have never been so frightened ever in all our lives because of this.

“I am so grateful that myself and my family eventually made it to Coventry without any physical harm, mentally this has damaged all of us and makes me never want to travel on a train again.”

A spokesman for London Northwestern Railway said: “We are sorry to any passengers who experienced uncomfortable journeys out of London Euston on Saturday (May 27) due to the high volumes of people attempting to travel. Train services from the station were subject to unavoidable delays and cancellations as a result of a signalling failure at Northampton. Any passenger whose journey was delayed by 15 minutes or more as a result of the disruption should claim compensation via the Delay Repay scheme.”

Meanwhile, Sky Blues fan, Jason Eyden, said he ended up paying £320 for a taxi home from London Euston, despite having return train tickets to and from Wembley.

“We got the train to Watford Junction which wasn’t busy, and the train to Wembley was fine but getting back to London Euston was a nightmare,” he said as per CoventryLive.

“We knew that Chiltern Railways had tweeted at midnight saying the trains were overbooked and anyone leaving from Warwick and Leamington should arrange alternative travel. This didn’t affect us as we are from Coventry, but this was wrong.”

“We were informed after waiting on Platform 1 for the Watford to Wembley train, but the train took us to Wembley Central and not the stadium, so also had to get a taxi to the ground.

“We were physically stopped from going onto three trains, then other trains were cancelled and the only available train was an hour waiting time, and we could see more Coventry fans appearing so we ended up taking a taxi home. The £320 should have been a lot more, but the driver agreed the price after seeing our plight, but I will never get on a train ever again.”

It wasn’t until gone 12am that they arrived back home. “We were stopped physically by staff on three trains we boarded and they didn’t seem to care at all about our situation and just said to get a taxi. This was the worst part of our journey despite the result on the pitch.”

“More people equals more trains are needed. It’s just incompetence at a grand scale to say it’s 50% overbooked 8 hours before the first train.”

Wembley Stadium warned that Coventry fans could get stranded in London after the game after Chiltern Railways said its services were oversubscribed.

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.”

This is how Twitter users reacted as Coventry fan says train chaos led to people ‘vomiting and urinating themselves’ on the way back from Wembley…

@stuchop: It’s unacceptable but any who regularly commutes to London into Euston or Marylebone knows this happens a lot during the normal working week

@scottbiggy: @LNRailway – Total chaos at Euston. Again. Trains cancelled with no notice, no announcements…At least theres not a big football game on today with people needling to get back to Coventry! No one will be accountable no doubt…you sleep well. Thank you.

@skybluepablo1: I was on the 9.23pm out of Euston back to Cov. It was horrendous, had to stand the whole journey, crammed in so we couldn’t move. Could of been disastrous. Absolutely disgraceful and so dangerous.

@EdKimberley: Nice one cancelling all the trains back to Coventry from London Euston @AvantiWestCoast @LondonMidland you’ve stranded a load of @Coventry_City and @LutonTown fans! Absolutely disgraceful.

@colincoopu2: Last train cancelled from Euston with 2000 coventry fans there fucking disgraceful

@BrownEyedT: London Northwestern are actually trying to get ALL these Coventry fans home from #euston on one 4 carriage train – what a joke of an incompetent company

@rhkennedy71: @AvantiWestCoast @WestMidsRailway care to explain why all trains back to rugby/Coventry etc were cancelled with no notice at Euston last night? Thousands of people stranded not to mention a useless return ticket and a £185 Uber back to Rugby 🤬 #shambles

Just getting in now, £300 taxi from Euston as all trained cancelled or too full 🙈

That was absolutely heartbreaking 💔 we go again #PUSB 💙 pic.twitter.com/dlDycekOht

— Tbag (@seantbag) May 28, 2023