Trapped passengers fed-up and angry as landslide causes days of …
Passengers have shared their frustration and anger after a landslide caused chaos on the railways in West Yorkshire and beyond – with disruption expected to last until Friday night.
Services between Huddersfield[1] and Leeds were cancelled or diverted following a landslide between Dewsbury[2] and Huddersfield, according to TransPennine Express. It meant that several stations were not served including Morley, Batley, Dewsbury, Mirfield and Brighouse. The disruption is expected to continue until the end of the day on Friday, November 10.
One passenger, who was trying to reach Manchester from Leeds, said she did not know whether she was just ‘unlucky’ or that train services were now ‘unusable’.
This morning, the advice to passengers was that the disruption would last until around 12.30pm, but this was later revised to 3pm. The most recent advice is that disruption is expected to continue tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday.
National Rail said: “Disruption is expected until the end of the day on Friday, November 10.”
Alternative road transport was reportedly provided for passengers to and from Dewsbury and between Huddersfield and Leeds.
The routes affected Northern services between Leeds and Wigan Wallgate, as well as TransPennine Express services between Leeds and Huddersfield, and between Saltburn and Manchester Airport, and between Newcastle/Scarborough and Manchester Piccadilly, also between Hull/Newcastle and Liverpool Lime Street.
Passengers expressed their frustrations on social media including on X, formerly Twitter.
Ceric, commenting on X, said: “Stuck on the 10.30 Manchester to Hull train just outside of Dewsbury. Been stood still for 30 mins with no information about what is happening, how long we will be here or what alternatives are available. Talk to your passengers.”
Journalist Robyn Vinter posted on X: “Today I planned to be in Manchester for something. I set off three hours ago from north Leeds and I’m still nowhere near Manchester, thanks to a landslip on the line near Dewsbury. I don’t know if I’ve got unlucky in the last few months or if train services are just unusable now.”
Two days ago, she posted: “I haven’t done a single train journey in the last two weeks that hasn’t been f****d up by delays or cancellations. There comes a point where it’s like do I want to be late after sitting in a cold train station for an hour or do I want to arrive on time in my nice warm, dry car?”
Train user Ben posted: “Please explain how we are meant to get home to Batley from Huddersfield when all trains are cancelled or delayed with no expected times shown on screen. Or even to Dewsbury.”
Passengers were reminded that they could be entitled to compensation if they experienced a delay.
National Rail posted: “Please keep your train ticket and make a note of your journey, as both will be required to support any claim.”
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References
- ^ Huddersfield (www.examinerlive.co.uk)
- ^ Dewsbury (www.examinerlive.co.uk)
- ^ Live as Huddersfield and Leeds trains hit by landslide chaos (www.examinerlive.co.uk)
- ^ here (www.examinerlive.co.uk)