Caption: Mum and son spent night on freezing train
(Picture: BPM Media)

A mother and son were forced to spend the night on a ‘freezing cold’ train after weather conditions and power failures meant they were stranded at the station.

Lorentinah Kaseke and her son, Joel, 10, from Cambridge, were left stranded overnight on a train until 6am after taxis and rail replacement buses were no longer running.

Along with around 20 other passengers they slept on the icy cold train until it was safe for it to run again in the morning.

The family had been visiting London for the day to celebrate Joel’s birthday when their train home was cancelled due to a combination of power failures and extreme weather conditions.

They had been go-karting before making their way back home later that day.

But their usually speedy 20-minute journey from Royston to Cambridge ended up taking them more than 10 hours.

The family travelled from London Kings Cross to Hitchin and from Hitchin train station got a replacement bus service to Royston train station.

Here they were planning to get the 9.49pm train to Cambridge but were told it was no longer running.

Joel was wrapped in hi-vis jackets as he tried to keep warm on the train (Picture: Cambridge News/BPM MEDIA)

Lorentinah Kaseke and her son Joel (Picture: Cambridge News/BPM MEDIA)

The mum and her son spent nearly 12 hours on a train (Picture: Cambridge News/BPM MEDIA)

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Instead, they were advised to go to a different platform and board the 10.09 Great Northern train to Cambridge.

However, after boarding the train and waiting they were later told this train would no longer be operating.

Unsure of how she was going to get home Lorentinah asked the staff if they could arrange a taxi or bus to Cambridge but unfortunately, neither of these were able to run, nor were any other trains.

She added that she didn’t know anyone in Royston that could help either and said: ‘We had nowhere to go’.

She said: ‘I was hysterical, I was even getting frustrated because my son was crying and as much as I was comforting him it’s very traumatising knowing that you’re stuck and you’ve got nowhere to go and you don’t even know whether the train is going move because of the weather.

‘Nobody could get to us. It was very very traumatising.’

Great Northern said they tried to arrange taxis for the passengers who had no way else to get home but due to the snow and ice that had already arrived local companies in Royston were not sending cars out.

A replacement bus service was also unable to be arranged.

This meant Lorentinah and her son had no choice but to stay on the standstill train from around 10.50pm until around 5.30am the next morning.

The mum said: ‘We had no choice but to sit in the cold train’ the mum said. She also explains that the train was ‘freezing cold, really, really cold.

‘My son was actually shivering, he cried until he couldn’t cry anymore’.

During the night Lorentinah asked the staff for some assistance to help keep her son warm.

With limited resources, the staff were able to provide the 10-year-old with a selection of hi-vis jackets to use as a blanket to try and keep him warm, the mum said she used numerous jackets to cover him as he lay on the seat of the train.

She said: ‘We didn’t even know how long we’d stay there for, because of the snow, we didn’t know if it was going to get worse’..

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They finally arrived at Cambridge station at around 6am the following day and Lorentinah finally walked in her front door at around 7am.

She said ‘I had to order an Uber but it cost me so much money and I didn’t have those funds to hand so I had to borrow money from my friend because I couldn’t wait again in the cold.

‘It was awful. I just really wanted to go home. I had been cold for a very long time’.

Helen Cavanagh, Head of Passenger Experience for Network Rail’s East Coast route said: ‘We’re incredibly sorry for the experience that Lorentinah, her son and other passengers had whilst travelling home on Sunday night.

‘A number of complex incidents, including an issue with the train-powering overhead line equipment near Royston and overrunning engineering work near Letchworth, caused some significant disruption to trains in the area.

‘We worked with Great Northern to help passengers find other ways home, but unfortunately the snow and ice meant that this wasn’t possible for everyone.

‘We’ll be reflecting on all the decisions made during these incidents to make sure our operational response is as good as it can be in the future.’

Were you stuck on a train due to the bad weather? Did your journey home take longer than 10 hours? If you have a travel chaos story please email [email protected]

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Joel, 10, spent the night ‘shivering’ after he was wrapped in hi-vis jackets to try and keep warm.