800 stuck in the heat on the Central Line

Stuck for two hours in 38C

On Friday morning around 800 passengers were stuck on a Central Line train after it broke down during rush hour. At 8.50am a train broke down between Liverpool St and Bank stations and it took until 10.45 for the last commuters to get out.

The broken train was close enough to to the platform for hundreds on board to get out, but it trapped another packed service behind it, which could not reverse because of the other trains queuing up behind.

One person on board had the following story, when he explained how passengers left in groups of ten.

"After an hour the driver told us the first two carriages had been emptied. I was at the very back and I started thinking I could be there for hours. One lady was suffering very badly. I can't believe they would keep someone like her trapped down there for almost an hour.

"It took an hour to get everyone on the front of the train off then just half an hour to get the rest of us. They obviously abandoned doing ten people at a time because it was too slow."

LU were trying to find out what caused the break down, but a British Transport Police spokesman said: "An object had fallen off the train and the train was stuck. It may have damaged the track."

So this is the second time in a month that passengers have been stuck underground for more than an hour. It must be a nightmare when at first you don't have a clue as to what's going on, and then wondering when you're actually going to get out.

London Underground are really lucky that more people don't have panic attacks and fortunately on this occasion only one person required medical attention after fainting and 12 were treated for exhaustion and dehydration. "The Ticket Collector's" blog has an entry about what it was like on the train, and it's quite interesting to see how a member of surface rail staff felt being stuck underground and what he tried to do to help.

Somehow your train fare back under the Customer Charter doesn't seem the right amount of compensation in times like this, and lets hope like with the people stuck on the Victoria Line, they get a better amount of compensation. Although I do wonder how you can possibly work out what the "right" amount of compensation is?