Glasgow subway passengers were forced to evacuate through the tunnels after one of the new trains suddenly stopped leaving them stranded between stations.
The incident happened around 11pm last night between Cowcaddens and St George’s Cross.
Passengers spent approximately 30 minutes onboard the motionless train before being escorted through the Subway tunnel by SPT staff.
One passenger was Paul O’Kane, MSP for West Scotland, who spoke to the Glasgow Times about the experience this morning.
He said: “The train stopped in the tunnel. The lights went out momentarily and then came back on. We were sat in the carriage for about half an hour.
“It was a pretty busy train - full of students who I think might have been sub-crawling, and a mix of people coming and going from different places.
"They said they were going to try and restore the power. That didn’t work, so they then started talking about ‘de-training,’ which involves walking through the tunnel.
"Staff came onboard and then took everyone down through the front of the train and we walked through the tunnel to Cowcaddens.”
This is not the first time that passengers have been evacuated through the tunnels. We reported subway passengers were forced to evacuate a train after being trapped for nearly an hour last July.
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Mr O’Kane added: “Hopefully SPT are looking at any issues to make sure it's as smooth a service as possible.
“I commute via the subway when I go to Edinburgh. It’s a very important service for people getting to work, getting to college or university, getting around Glasgow. So I think it’s important that any teething issues are being resolved quickly.”
Student Tilly Mason, 22, another of the passengers onboard, said: “It stopped for five or 10 minutes before they actually said that anything was going on. The driver said that there was a power cut.
“It took ages. He kept saying we’re going to walk down the tunnel, but I think the driver was waiting for other staff to come and help. So we were sat there for ages just waiting for them to let us off.
“The windows started fogging up. Some people were getting quite anxious about it, a bit claustrophobic. People seemed quite stressed.
“I’m lucky to be able-bodied and young, able to walk down a tunnel. Even to get from the tracks up to the platform was quite a big step.”
A TikTok showing passengers in the tunnel was also posted online.
@nanimusicofficial This is my idea of a very nice day out 🥰 @Glasgow Subway #glasgow #subwaysurfers #willywonka ♬ SUBWAY SURFERS (Main Theme) - Subway Surfers
An SPT spokesperson said: "One of our new rolling stock did develop a fault while in passenger service.
"Once the train was removed from the system, an electrical fault was identified, rectified and the train was made available for service.
"A number of passengers were detrained into the tunnels which is normal practice if we cannot move the train to the nearest station."
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