Rachel Riley was stuck on an Elizabeth Line train for almost four hours and somewhere else so was James Blunt (Picture: Rachel Riley/X)
Rachel Riley and James Blunt got caught up in Thursday evening’s Elizabeth Line chaos when a power outage trapped passengers on their trains for hours.
Commuters were left seething after the new £19,000,000,000 rail line plunged the trains into semi-darkness near Paddington Station, and they were left stuck on the packed carriages.
Some frustrated travellers even smashed their way out the cold, dark trains and walked down the tracks to escape after waiting for more than three hours.
A mother with a newborn said a woman fainted on her train while another passenger claimed people were forced to use their seats as toilets.
Among the thousands trapped were TV star Rachel Riley and singer James Blunt.
‘Been stuck somewhere outside Paddington for close to 4 hours now,’ the You’re Beautiful singer, 49, said on X, formerly Twitter. ‘Out of peanuts and wine.’
She looked pretty pleased to be leaving (Picture: Rachel Riley/X)
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‘Can someone please contact @Dominos_UK. This is an emergency.’
Of course, in classic James fashion, this admission escalated into online comedy gold when the pizza chain’s social media team replied with: ‘Got a car packed with pizzas for you James. Our boot is full, it’s true.’
‘Great,’ he replied, with a sobering request: ‘There just over a thousand of us.’
Other trapped passengers requested James come to their carriage and sing a song, while a coach G commuter on one of the trains, Mark McWilliams, wrote: ‘James, I think we’re on the same train. There’s a very gracious passenger here in coach G – she offered me her seat and beer and she would love to meet you.’
Meanwhile Countdown star Rachel, 37, wrote: ‘Nearly 4 hours after we got on, we’re getting off the Elizabeth line, woohoo!’
She also posted some excitable pictures, looking relieved to be out of the horrific situation.
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Rachel said she was stuck on this train for almost four hours (Picture: Rachel Riley/X)
The presenter also posed for a selfie with a TfL worker in high-vis, who looked a little shell-shocked at the evening’s chaos.
‘This poor TfL guy has had quite the night,’ she wrote, alongside the picture, in which Rachel beamed merrily.
One of Rachel’s followers Michael Smith commented: ‘How did you all stay so happy?’
Another X user, Matthew Evans, wrote: ‘4 hours and no toilet? How did everyone cope?’
The trains stopped running between London Paddington and Heathrow Airport in the rush hour after damage to overhead cables caused the shut-down.
A Network Rail spokesperson said the overhead cables affected were in the Ladbroke Grove area.
‘We are so sorry for the difficult journeys passengers endured on our railway last night and we will be investigating how and why it happened,’ a spokesperson said today.
‘The knock-on effects from last night mean operators will not be able to run a full service from Paddington today and passengers should check before they travel.
‘Repairs are ongoing and we hope to have the railway fully open by the weekend.’
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It was chaos.