Insane moment major UK airport passengers are forced off train in Storm Bert chaos

The train came to a standstill, a mile past Harrow Mill station on the West Anglia main line, 12 miles away from Stansted Airport, its supposed destination.

The 24-mile journey up to that point had been ominously jerky. The 11.30 am November 24th departure barely made it out of Liverpool Street station before it stopped for a good ten minutes.

Thereafter it crawled, walked and ran as if on an erratic treadmill as it made its tortuous way ever deeper into the Essex countryside. Storm Bert, deep grey skies and the disconcerting sound of 75mph winds heralded trouble. 

At around 12.35, ten minutes after the train’s planned Stansted Airport arrival, the train driver spoke to the restless passengers. We needed to stop, he said, due to some as of yet unknown reason. But he would get back to us, he promised. 

Things were going to be tight, some voices could be heard saying, calculating how much time would be required to go through security at Stansted. Others, calmer because their time margin was greater, thought that a one- or two-hours delay would not hurt them too much.

The initial information was bitty.  Half an hour later, the electricity in the train went. A female computerised voice announced on the PA that the train was running low on energy and that we should therefore head to the nearest exit. 

The passengers intuitively understood that this would be no temporary stop. Strangely, the mood of passengers lightened rather than worsened. All went on phones and devices to re-organise their journey. 

A little after the robotic PA broadcast, the driver gave us further information.  A tree had fallen on power cables ahead of us. The train would not be moving at all.  We would all have to get off the train and walk back to Harrow Mill Station on the track, a mile away. 

Walk on the track back to a station? In the 21st century? All passengers looked around at each other and in disbelief.  Peter Skaer, a German octogenarian with a bad hip, a great sense of humour and a lot of luggage, thought it was perhaps more than he had bargained for. 

Indeed, he had come to England to celebrate his 80th birthday with his children, two of whom lived in the UK, and one, Silke, who was with him, on their way back to Bremen, Germany. 

It was, we joked, to make his birthday unforgettable. It was all planned for him. The driver intervened again to let us know that staff from Network Rail would come to our rescue. An hour or so later, dressed in orange overalls and wearing white hard hats, the company’s staff walked through the train. 

We would all have to walk to the back of the train and get off one by one, they said. After another hour of preparation, we were told to get up and make our way to the one exit door. 

Slowly, the 690 passengers, a mass of humanity, one by one, excruciatingly slowly, shuffled out. However, the mothers with their children, the geriatrics with their ailments, the hipster with their attitude and the tourists with their cameras, all equalised by the process were, in the end, heart-warmingly dignified. 

While most thought the process unnecessarily cumbersome, it became evident that it was the sensible thing to do. The train door is a good three to four feet off the ground and the steps invisible from the cockpit. 

Without direction from the Network Rail staff, many would have fallen and broken bones. Essex police officers were there too. PC Wilson, Inspector Buck and Sergeant Nott among others received the passengers on the rocky and very uneven tracks. 

The officers helped carry the luggage of the less able, provided guidance and reassurance to the multitudes as they walked the unexpected mile back to Harrow Mill station. 

The scene was that of a World War II film with refugees forced off a train, half expecting Spitfires to fly low over the horizon ready to strafe the tracks. In an air of slight surrealism, Minna Wilson, Anna Rydell and Ellen Nilson, all from Sweden walked, joked and laughed all the way. 

Some even heard ABBA being sung or was it just the gusts of winds mixing with their jollity?  They had come to Britain for a fun week in London. They were decidedly not going to let an act of God ruin their mood. 

From Rabat, Morocco, Ghita Benessahraoui and Jamyl Mandi Panne had escaped to London for a “Weekend en amoureux”, as Ghita sweetly phrased it with a slight playful glint in her eye. The charming couple, while a little inconvenienced by the events, were nonetheless in high spirits. 

It would be a romantic weekend forever etched in their memories.  They were looking forward to flying back to North Africa the next day to be re-united with their kin. 

The entire event, while deeply inconvenient to all involved, including all who had hoped travel out of Stansted airport later in the day, as all trains were subsequently cancelled, and extremely costly to the greater economy, nevertheless, showed a reassuring side to our humanity. 

On the way out of a train, a red headed, blue eyed toddler started laughing and giggling with a joy that warmed everyone’s hearts. He won’t remember but we will. 

Indeed, no one on the 11.30am to Stansted Airport will forget Harrow Mill Station, even if they never return.