Bicycle under a train = hours of travel chaos (From Enfield Independent)

Bicycle under a train = hours of travel chaos

8:17am Wednesday 28th May 2008

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SCHOOLCHILDREN accidentally caused four hours of chaos to thousands of commuters and damage to a train when one of their bikes fell onto the tracks.

The bike was accidentally pushed onto the line from the platform by a one of a group of pupils at Broxbourne station.

The students were accompanied by a teacher, who witnessed the incident, which took place around 3.40pm on Thursdasy.

A spokeswoman for British Transport Police said: "It seems to be an accident. One of the group pushed the bike towards his friend and it fell onto the tracks.

"They went to tell the rail staff but by that time the train had already gone through. It was travelling about 80mph."

Over 150 services on the Lee Valley Lines, which run to Cheshunt, Stansted, Cambridge and Hertford East, suffered delays of up to an hour-and-a-half, while there were knock-on delays on the Enfield to Liverpool Street line.

All services suffered delays until mid-evening with services being restored to normal from 8pm onwards.

The train was the 3.15pm service from Stansted Airport to Liverpool Street, which came to a halt shortly after running over the bike.

An engineer was called to remove the bicycle and carry out temporary repairs to the undercarriage of the train.

Passengers were taken to Cheshunt where they caught the next train to Liverpool Street while the train was taken to the depot in Ilford.

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