Passenger shares pictures of Edinburgh Festival train chaos

A disgruntled rail passenger has shared shocking pictures from a packed train out of the Capital on the final day of the Edinburgh Festival.

Lachie Robertson told of how he had to squeeze onto the last carriage of the 15:30 LNER train to London on Monday 27 August.

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Lachie, from Australia, posted photos of his ordeal on the Evening News’ Facebook Group, Our Edinburgh.

Passengers crammed into the corridors on the 15:30 Edinburgh to London train on Bank Holiday Monday (27 Aug). Picture: Lachie Robertson/ Our Edinburgh Facebook pagePassengers crammed into the corridors on the 15:30 Edinburgh to London train on Bank Holiday Monday (27 Aug). Picture: Lachie Robertson/ Our Edinburgh Facebook page
Passengers crammed into the corridors on the 15:30 Edinburgh to London train on Bank Holiday Monday (27 Aug). Picture: Lachie Robertson/ Our Edinburgh Facebook page
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In the snaps, fed-up passengers can be seen crammed into the corridors of the trains with conditions Lachlan described as “bloody hot.”

He wrote: “The first 5 trains were all full, only just managed to board the 6th (3 hour wait)...not enough room to scratch yourself.

“Not sure why we bothered to book tickets (months ago)...how did the public transport operators fail to realise that they sold more tickets than there were seats?!”

Other users argued it was futile to try and book a seat at this time of year.


Ian Ross posted: “happens all the time during the festival. No point in booking a seat. My wife and I had to stand all the way from Preston to Edinburgh.”

Dereck McCready exclaimed: “That is surely a safety issue. Time these companies get themselves sorted, charging first world prices for third world service.”

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But Anne-Marie Copley countered: “I don’t get this, I’ve never had an issue? You book a seat, you get on and sit on it. What happened to your seat? If someone was in it just move them!”

The latest transport issues come just days after the Evening News reported a separate incident where late-night revellers struggled to get home from the Fringe over the bank holiday weekend due to chaos at Waverley and Haymarket stations as packed ScotRail trains failed to meet demand.


An LNER spokesperson said: “Some of our trains were very busy over the Bank holiday weekend due to engineering works on the West Coast route and to the end of the Edinburgh Festival.

“Due to this, we took a number of steps to try to ease the situation both in the run up to and during the weekend.

“This included warning customers in advance that services were expected to be busy and that seats should be reserved where possible, advising customers to travel later in the day on quieter trains and de-classifying First class carriages on busy trains.

“We are sorry that this didn’t help all of our customers and are looking at what we can learn from this experience to try and avoid this situation being repeated.”