Brighton Pride revellers have complained of being stranded for several hours as a result of delays at the city’s train station as huge crowds attempted to make their home.
People were forced to wait in long queues outside Brighton station on Saturday night, with services held to allow more people to board. Southern rail said the measures were implemented because of overcrowding, having earlier said the station could be closed at short notice.
Geraldine Carr, 38, said she arrived at the station at 11.50pm hoping to catch a train back to London but did not get home until 5am.
“The queue was insane,” she said. “When the barriers opened people were slowly being let in, but this of course led to people being pushed and shoved.
“I saw one woman have a panic attack and could not see any paramedics around to help. If a serious incident happened while we were waiting it would have been very serious. Eventually after an hour or so we got through the gates and were shoved into a train. This was chaotic as people were running.”
It was a shambles. Our train stopped at Three Bridges and there was then chaotic scenes as people tried to change to the London train. Many could not get in the train and were stranded. pic.twitter.com/2dmEqqXATn
— Geraldine Carr (@GeriCarr) August 5, 2018
Crowd control measures were also implemented at Three Bridges station in Crawley, where some passengers changed for trains to London.
Brighton and Hove city council opened up the Brighton Centre conference venue for those stranded but said only nine people turned up.
A council spokeswoman said: “Many people decided not to travel and went to the beach instead, the numbers were added to by others leaving the PVP [Pride Village Party] and also heading to the seafront. This led to overcrowding in some areas and an increase in calls to emergency services.”
Southern rail was bombarded with complaints on Twitter. It said it would not be able to respond immediately because of the high volume of tweets.
In response to one customer, it said: “More than enough trains were provided. Due to overcrowding outside the station these trains could not be boarded as scheduled. Safety measures were put in place for travellers by the police.”
• The picture caption was amended on 8 August 2018. An earlier version said Brighton station, this has been corrected to Three Bridges.
