A commuter was left fuming after he woke up on a sleeper train the morning after boarding to find he had not even left the station and was still hundreds of miles away from his destination.
Jim Metcalfe, from East Renfrewshire in Scotland, boarded a Caledonian Sleeper train on Tuesday evening expecting to wake up in London the following day.
However, he awoke to find out that he had not even left the station and was still in Glasgow, as the train had been cancelled due to the heatwave.
Brits were told during this week's heatwave that they should only travel if absolutely necessary, due to train crew shortages and heat weather warnings.
Delays and cancellations were seen on longer routes with large stretches of exposed train tracks that don't have shade.
The charity chief executive from East Renfrewshire awoke early the next day and was "thrown off" the train — still in Glasgow, Glasgow Live reported.
In a tweet posted on Wednesday morning, the passenger wrote: "In 15 years of using this train, and through many bizarre twists and turns, this has to be strangest yet. Wake up, and the train never left Glasgow.
"It was just sat here all night, and now we have been thrown off it at 5.30am in the wrong city."
Being interviewed by the BBC, he said: "I can't sleep before it starts moving so I get on early and try to sleep first, so I got on at 22:30 and was asleep by 23:00. That was it really.
"There was a knock on the door at 05:00 and a guy very kindly appeared with a roll and sausage and coffee - he explained the train hadn't moved.
"We were told we had to get off because they needed the platform back. It was more surreal than anything else - I should have been 300 miles away."
He continued: "I would say in a really difficult situation, the onboard train staff were really calm and professional and handled it as best they could.
"I just went home, for me it was a minor inconvenience. But it is bringing home what is happening around the world on the climate emergency - it made it very real that you were experiencing this in real time."
Serco’s Managing Director for Caledonian Sleeper Kathryn Darbandi said: “We apologise to guests affected by the cancellation of our overnight services between Scotland and London.
"This was due to a fault identified on the line, late in the evening, related to the extreme temperatures causing problems across the network, which were outside of our control.
“We made all efforts to support guests impacted, including providing overnight accommodation on board and options for travel on alternative rail services the next day. All guests will receive a full refund.”
