Passengers were left stranded on a cold and wet railway station platform yesterday - because train staff had accidentally locked themselves out of their OWN train.
The "shambolic" incident involved a 5.20pm Newton Abbot to Truro service, one of the few which had not been cancelled because of Storm Callum.
Network Rail had been forced to close a stretch of the line next to the Teign Estuary, which connects Devon and Cornwall with the rest of the country, on Sunday morning after
discovering a hole in the track above a culvert.
But when passengers arrived at Newton Abbot train station on rail replacement buses, they found that it was doors - not holes - that were proving to be an obstacle for Great Western Railway.
Its driver and a station manager were filmed trying to pull open one of the doors, before the manager was forced to clamber into a window and manually release the door locks.
A platform worker was heard remarking "I have never heard a crowd cheer for train doors opening before."
And, in a bizarre addition, travelers also noted that a loudspeaker announcement kept repeating that the inaccessible 5.20pm service at the platform had been cancelled.
The loudspeaker would then inform the passengers that their next train would be: The 5.20pm service at the platform.
