Mother ‘was pushed on to rail tracks by train door’

A MOTHER-of-two is planning to sue rail chiefs after she claims a train door shut without warning, pushing her on to the track and under the wheels.

Marnie Inches’ husband and elder son had to jump on to the tracks to pull her clear while her younger son shouted at railway staff to stop the train from moving.

Mrs Inches, 36, who broke her arm in the incident, is now planning legal action against ScotRail, saying neither she nor any member of the family heard an alarm telling them the door was shutting.

She also claims ScotRail staff witnessed the accident but stood by as her husband and child risked their lives to rescue her. Mrs Inches, from Kirkcaldy, Fife, was trying to get off the train at the town’s railway station with her husband Alex, 38, and sons Reece, 12, and Lewis, ten, when the accident happened.

“My oldest son stepped off in front of me and I was just about to get off,” she said.

“The doors began to close on my arm. The force of the door pushed me down beneath the tracks of the train. I was absolutely terrified that the train would pull away and drag me with it, but before I knew it my husband and son were dragging me up by my arms off the track before it could pull away.”

She said: “I didn’t hear any alarm to warn me that the doors were about to close and neither did my husband or sons.

“As far as I’m concerned, they just started to close without warning, which says to me that the train has some sort of design fault.”

Mrs Inches said three ScotRail guards were on the platform when she fell. “I cannot understand why the three guards didn’t rush to my aid when they saw what had happened.

“I’m absolutely disgusted that my child had to pull me from the tracks while the guards stood by on the platform. They checked on me to see that I was all right and stayed for ten minutes.

“After that, all three of them hopped back on the train and left me with my husband and kids to wait for the ambulance on our own,” she said.

Mrs Inches was taken to Queen Margaret Hospital, Dunfermline, where she was treated for shock and a broken arm.

“The thing that bothered me the most was that ScotRail didn’t even bother to follow up on me to see if I was alright,” she said.

She contacted British Transport Police who confirmed that ScotRail had lodged a formal incident report.

However, she said she has not heard anything since then.

Mrs Inches said she has had to take ten weeks off work since the accident happened.

A ScotRail spokesman said: “We would be happy to meet this customer and review the accident.

“An initial investigation, including a review of CCTV, showed that the door alarm was sounding as she was alighting from the train. No faults were found with the door.”

He added that the passenger followed up her accident report on the night of the incident with a telephone call to customer relations on 22 July.

He said that a response was sent that day, seeking further details. To date, no reply had been received.