Rail woe for Labour conference-goers
- Published
London Euston services were badly affected by the signal failure
Hundreds of delegates and journalists have been stuck on trains heading home from Labour's conference - just after Jeremy Corbyn bemoaned the state of Britain's railways.
MPs and other passengers on the Virgin Trains route from Liverpool - where the party faithful had gathered - to London faced severe delays.
The problems were caused by a signal fault near Wembley.
"Couldn't make this up," Mr Corbyn tweeted.
He pointed to Labour's flagship pledge to bring Britain's railways back into public ownership.
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But Virgin Trains - which has history with the Labour leader - was quick to point out that the disruption - was not its responsibility.
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Railway signalling is part of the infrastructure managed by government-owned Network Rail, which is distinct from the private rail operators like Virgin.
Analysis by the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Chris Mason
On board a delayed train from Liverpool
The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Chris Mason was among the journalists stuck on delayed trains out of Liverpool
Jeremy Corbyn loves his trains.
And a little over half an hour after getting off the stage in Liverpool, he was sounding chuffed off about the railway again.
Significant delays from Liverpool to London prompted him to re-state, on Twitter, his long standing view that the railway should be nationalised.
The thing is, this was a signalling problem, and so the responsibility of Network Rail, which is owned by the state.
But still a little unfortunate for Virgin Trains, as a significant chunk of Her Majesty's Opposition and press corps, in possession of an assortment of hangovers, sleep deprivation and bags of smelly socks, have all got caught up in the delays.
It's not the first time Mr Corbyn has had a run in with Virgin Trains either.
Two years ago there was so-called 'train gate,' where he took pictures of himself sitting on the floor of a "ram packed" train, only for the train company to point out there were spare seats on it.
Trains going to other destinations such as Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh were also affected.
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James Dean, from Network Rail, said a broken cable had led to lost signalling in the north Wembley area.
"We are really sorry to all customers who have been impacted by this," he added.
In his conference speech, Mr Corbyn spoke about the collapse of the Virgin Trains East Coast franchise and pledged that shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald "will end this shambles".