Exclusive: Elm Park man stranded on stalled tube for hours with no lights and no heating.

TfL Director of Customer Operations apologises after passengers left stranded on a District line tube with no power in freezing temperatures.

An Elm Park man was one of many passengers left on a district line tube for hours after it stalled between Dagenham East and Elm Park station on Sunday December 11.

The incident took place just after 7pm as the snow fell heavily across east London building up on tracks causing problems. This resulted in three stalled trains on the District Line on Sunday evening in the Elm Park area.

Paul had just finished work and boarded the tube at Barking, for what should have been a short ride to Elm Park station, instead it was just after 11pm when he and the other passengers got to their destination. He told the Havering Daily: “It was making some very worrying noises as I boarded the train. You could hear that it was really struggling to keep going.

“As we got between Dagenham East and Elm Park, the tube just stopped and that was it. All the lights went out and there was no power whatsoever. The driver informed us that he was doing what he could to get the train going, but nothing. He spoke to us to let us know what was going on and we could hear that he was doing his best to get us moving again, but clearly the train was knackered.

“The snow was falling heavily outside and the train then needed to be de-iced and the track needed to be cleared. The driver informed us that the last resort was to remove us from the train so an emergency team was on its way to see if they could get the train moving.

“They told us to try and all gather together in one carriage to keep warm, but with Covid you don’t really want to huddle with people that you don’t know.

“It was also hard for women who had to use the toilet, they were advised to find an empty carriage and go there.”

Despite the freezing temperatures Paul and the other passengers sat in the cold and dark for hours.

“No one came round with any hot drinks or anything for us, we were literally just left there,” continued Paul.

After trying to get the train started to no avail, the passengers had to be escorted off by staff and had to walk to Elm Park station where they were met by British Transport Police and a medic.

“They escorted us off in groups and we made it to Elm Park. Luckily that was my destination but I could hear others asking how they were going to get to Upminster at 11pm and they were being told to ‘just get on a bus’. It was snowing heavily and people did not even know if the buses were running due to the severe weather conditions.

“To add insult injury,” finished Paul, “When I got to Elm Park, as the journey had been so long, my ticket wasn’t recognised and I had to pay a whole day’s fare!”

Nick Dent, TfL’s Director of Customer Operations told the Havering Daily: “I would like to apologise to customers who were involved in an incident involving a stalled train on the District line on Sunday evening.

“We have well-rehearsed plans and procedures which we enacted in partnership with all London boroughs and the emergency services to keep the capital moving during the snow and ice. On Sunday there were a number of incidents on the network which required us to deploy our Emergency Response team meaning we weren’t able to respond to this incident as quickly as we usually would. Due to the weather conditions, the Emergency Response team agreed that the safest course of action was for customers to remain on the train until all of the options to recover power to the train were explored”

Due to the severe weather conditions, the build of ice and snow caused three stalled trains on Sunday evening in the Elm Park area.This added additional pressure to the Tfl Emergency Response Unit who were repeatedly deployed across the evening. They were required to manually clear several hundred metres of ice from the rails.