Pupils and staff from a Penrith school left stranded after travel arrangements went awry have praised the man who went the extra mile to help them.
The owner of a Cumbrian bus firm stepped up when a group from Queen Elizabeth Grammar School were unable to get home from London, after a trackside fire stopped all trains out of Euston.
The year nine pupils had enjoyed a cultural trip to London and were due to head back to Penrith on Friday by train.
Deputy headteacher Rob Dawson said they should have departed just before 5pm, but by about 4.40pm all trains had been delayed out of Euston.
“This soon became a ‘suspension’ of all trains until further notice,” said Mr Dawson.
After making contact with Avanti staff, the school’s 88 students and eight staff in London were allowed to wait on the ramp leading to the platforms, ensuring they would be ready to board when train services resumed.
“After more than an hour on the ramp it became clear that almost no trains were going to be leaving. We were advised by Avanti to travel to Kings Cross and take a train to Newcastle.
“Staff briefly discussed this but dismissed the idea of arriving in Newcastle in the early hours having spent several hours on a very crowded train. Another member of the station staff suggested we wouldn’t be allowed on the Newcastle train as our party was too big. By now Euston had announced all passengers should find an alternative route and that tickets would be valid on any service on Saturday.
“After briefly being moved to a lounge area, we were advised by Avanti to board a train to Rugby which was running, and change there to get back to Penrith.
“We did manage to get on that train thanks to Avanti, but were soon told not to get off at Rugby as there would be no services running north of Preston on Friday. The decision was taken to stay on the train to Manchester Piccadilly.
“Staff from school — including myself — then began calling bus companies from both Cumbria and Manchester in an attempt to get home on Friday. A couple of companies could find us a bus, but no driver. Our assistant site manager was really helpful and set off for Manchester along with his son-in-law with the two school minibuses.
“After several dead-ends, we got hold of Chris Firth from Metcalfe Coaches who was still in the office. Whilst he had a 70-seater in the yard, he had no drivers left with enough hours to come all the way to Manchester. Chris spent a couple of hours phoning his contacts around Greater Manchester.
“Without this we were reliant on office numbers, which were all closed.
“Eventually he hit success with Atlantic Travel in Bolton who arranged a bus to be with us in Manchester. Chris arranged all of this on his own time. The train was then further delayed by ‘track issues’ and ‘trespassers on the line’.
“After a very crowded and slow train ride to Manchester, we arrived at 10.30pm. Ten minutes later the coach arrived and our site staff — Ian Campbell and son-in-law Gaz — arrived with the minibuses.
We then did the journey home to Penrith by road. We arrived back in town at 1-15am.
“Parents were all very supportive and felt we had dealt with it well. Fortunately we had some very experienced staff on the trip.”
Mr Firth said: “I could not leave them stranded. I thought, if they were my kids I would not want them waiting on a platform somewhere for six hours.”
