I was on the 1205 off Waterloo which terminated at Woking well over three hours late.
Having seen the pictures of the twig above, I'm quite flummoxed as to why it took so long to get things sorted. Was serious damage caused to the power supply? (We did have power for almost all of those three hours, it was only off for maybe ten minutes). I had at least expected a very large tree!
I am also quite unimpressed that while we did have power and were able to move (it was the train in front that hit it) no attempt was made to extricate us, either by way of evacuation or just running us back wrong line. A delay was inevitable, but the length of it wasn't. Had no toilets been available it's one of those cases where I'd have seriously considered using the egress - and it was already long enough to be causing people issues due to the lack of any kind of catering, at one point an announcement was made regarding water for someone who needed to take meds.
The driver and guard did what they could, but they seemed poorly informed too.
And at Woking it was a shambles, for instance the following Weymouth had a last minute platform alteration to 5, which I expect not everyone made due to the narrow footbridge - yet the former had been sat in 4 with no driver (gone elsewhere, either for PNB or to work something else) for over half an hour at that point and so that could have been known and announced well in advance.
Very, very poor on SWR and NR's part. Delay Repay doesn't seem enough, really.
I think this is the longest single delay I've ever experienced (except where I've given up entirely), and unlike in the case of a fatality (my second-longest one) it barely seemed justified, either, when there were options that were simply not taken.
