Fans travelling to Glastonbury by train suffer disruption

Music fans travelling to the Glastonbury Festival by train are suffering disruption.

Great Western Railway (GWR) said shortly before 8am on Thursday that all lines were blocked at West Ealing in west London due to “the emergency services dealing with an incident near the railway”.

This affected services to and from London Paddington, which is on the route serving Castle Cary, the nearest station to the festival site at Worthy Farm in Somerset.

Several trains were cancelled, including the 8.38am departure from the capital to Castle Cary.

The lines reopened at around 9am but services continued to be disrupted due to trans and crews being out of position.

Dozens of people sat on the floor at London Paddington near the boarding area for Castle Cary services.

Hannah Yates, 28, from north London, who was booked on a train with four friends, told the PA news agency: “I went up to (a member of staff) and they said there’s been a fatality on the line and to wait for 45 minutes, so we’re waiting for the next announcement.

“It’s frustrating, I would say.

“This was a day that’s already quite stressful so this adds to it.”

Another festivalgoer, who gave their name as Zac, said: “We took the Elizabeth line here and they had cancelled the Elizabeth line to Heathrow so we had a suspicion.

“We’re still looking forward to it – a couple of hours won’t make a difference to the whole weekend.”

Passengers are being warned to expect disruption until 1pm.

GWR said earlier this month that it planned to provide more than 28,600 seats on trains from London Paddington to Castle Cary between Wednesday and Friday for festivalgoers.

It warned that early and mid-morning trains on Wednesday and Thursday were almost fully booked.