VIA Rail passengers ‘abandoned’ in Smiths Falls
Posted Jan 15, 2012 12:16:40 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Passengers on board a VIA Rail train headed from Toronto to Ottawa Saturday say they were abandoned in Smiths Falls.
The train reportedly stopped in the town around 4 p.m. because of problems with an air compressor and passengers were stuck in their cars for around three hours.
The train was only supposed to be held up 10 to 15 minutes, but Jolanta Mojsej told 1310News passengers began to worry when the train did not move for 40 minutes.
“It wasn’t until an hour later that we were like ‘Okay we need to find out what’s going on,'” she said. “There were no VIA Rail officials. There was nobody there.”
Calls to Via Rail were placed but not returned.
Mojsej said the train quickly became uncomfortable.
“There was no air going through, it was just heat coming in,” she said. “The doors were locked, so you can’t go outside, and then the passenger beside me, she said don’t go into the bathroom, because the bathrooms don’t flush and they are overflowing.”
She said passengers resorted to Twitter to get in touch with representatives from VIA, who assured them they were not abandoned and that the staff was just in a meeting.
“Definitely seeing the tweets,” a VIA employee tweeted on the company’s official account. “Trust me, no one has been abandoned. We’re very sorry for this & we will get everyone home.”
“What bothered me about the situation was that if there were a real medical emergency, there were no VIA Rail employees to turn to, and no one was communicating with us,” she said.
VIA contends the passengers were given regular updates, but a number of passengers aired their frustration on Twitter, saying they had not been updated for almost the entire duration of the stop in Smiths Falls.
Buses finally arrived around 8 p.m. to bring the passengers to Ottawa and they are being offered compensation for their ordeal.
One passenger tweeted he arrived in the capital at 9:15 p.m.
