After the concert ended, we met up with the others from our group who'd been, then went to Wembley Stadium station to catch our train. This is the point at which it becomes less fun, and more annoying.
We got to the station, and understandably there were different queues for different destinations - one for Marylebone, a couple for some other places, then one for Oxford and Oxford Parkway. We joined this queue, and bumped into some family members who, whilst not part of our group in going to the concert, had also been and were now trying to get home to Oxford, from where they would be picked up to go home.
Our queue didn't move for a while, then moved a few times quite quickly. The Marylebone queue was moving a lot quicker than ours - I assume because there were more trains going into Marylebone than Oxford. Eventually, we got onto the bridge which spans the tracks at Wembley Stadium station. Those who know the station will know that it is formed of two platforms, with a road bridge (well, sort of pedestrianised bit I suppose) going over the top. The queueing system in place went onto the bridge. Whilst on the bridge, we could hear a train at one of the platforms underneath. I'm fairly sure people were let on, but I can't quite remember. This was around the time that our train, 1T72 2305 London Marylebone - Oxford, was supposed to be in the station, so we assumed it was ours.
We stood around for what felt like a long time, waiting for our queue to be called and for us to be let onto the train. It was lightly raining by this point, it was cold, and we were all packed into this queue made up of all these portable metal railings. The staff seemed to be doing nothing for our queue. I checked RealTime Trains (a godsend, honestly, at this point), to find that the train which was in the station was, in fact, ours: and, that it had left. We were stranded - no train back to Oxford Parkway to get to the car to drive home. I believe that some people from another queue made a bit of a mad dash onto the platform, then staff stopped people from getting down there. There was the equivalent of a two-coach Class 165 in our queue - assuming all seats were taken and no-one was standing, so it wasn't unreasonable of us, in that moment, to assume that the train wasn't full and that we were just being kept up on the bridge.
Half an hour passed, with no information. At around 2345, a member of staff came up to us, and, in a manner which I can only describe as being that of someone saying, "well it's not my fault, this is your issue now, sorry mate", told us that there were no trains home to Oxford, and that our best bet would be to get the next train, which was for Banbury, and either get off at Bicester North or Banbury and organise our own road transport home. This member of staff seemed to find it amusing that people were stranded and that people were angry, which didn't help matters at all.
We were let down onto the platform. On our way, we passed a group of people, including the aforementioned family member we bumped into in the queue, who were being held in what looked like the railway equivalent of a cattle dock next to the top of the stairs down to the platform: they had been called for Bicester, and figuring that was their best bet of getting home, went for it. We mentioned as we passed that we were going to Bicester, causing people in that group to get a bit agitated and end up being let onto the platform with us (though I think they would have been let onto the platform anyway).
Once we were on the platform, we spoke to a really helpful member of staff - the only helpful member of staff - who explained that the problems were caused by the signaller sending a train out in the wrong sequence, meaning things were thrown into the air a bit. I think he also mentioned that the train for Oxford was short-formed, meaning people for other intermediate destinations could board but then there wasn't enough room for us, but I'm not quite sure.
Before getting onto the platform, we were told that taxis would be organised to pick people up at Bicester (and I think at Banbury, but again I'm not quite sure). Sure enough, when we got to Bicester, taxis were waiting. However, after speaking to two or three, it turned out that they'd either been supposedly pre-booked, or weren't sent by Chiltern Railways at all, and were just sat there on their break. Luckily, my group managed to get two taxis to take us all to Oxford Parkway, from where we drove home. The relatives we met at Wembley had joined the same train as us, but went all the way to Banbury, from where they got a lift home. We finally returned home an hour-and-a-half after we were supposed to, after having gone through quite a degree of stress, anger, and frustration which could have, at least it seemed to us 'in the dark' yesterday evening, been quite easily avoided.
The helpful member of staff at Wembley Stadium told us that we would be able to claim from Chiltern the cost of the taxis, and perhaps even the cost of the tickets - though I'm not 100% sure how we might go about all that, so I'd be very grateful for any advice, probably in the Fares Advice section?
Thanks for reading - apologies for it being such a long post, but I wanted to explain it all. I have sent Chiltern a message on Twitter (as this was the easiest way for me to voice my concerns at the time in the small hours of this morning) but they don't staff that account over the weekend, so I await a response at the beginning of next week!
-Peter