A man who had to abandon his plans after getting stuck at two railway stations says accessibility provisions need to improve.
Isaac Harvey MBE travelled from London to Cambridge on Saturday but had to end his journey early after being cut off by issues including a broken lift.
Unable to leave Cambridge Station, he eventually returned home to Dagenham in a fruitless nine-hour round trip.
Greater Anglia, which manages Cambridge Station, said it was investigating.
Mr Harvey, who received an MBE on Wednesday from King Charles for services to people with disabilities, said his week had gone from “one extreme to another”.
He arrived in Cambridge ahead of a party but said he could not exit the train initially, as no ramp was available for his electric wheelchair.
After then being unable to reach the exit due to a broken lift, Mr Harvey said he and another wheelchair user were told they could travel to Ely, where an accessible taxi would be waiting for him.
However, once at Ely no taxi was available and instead they were told to return to Cambridge on another train that would be rerouted to an accessible platform, more than two hours after he originally arrived at Cambridge Station.
Problems continued when Greater Anglia staff informed Mr Harvey and his friend Laura Mathias, who he was travelling with, that an accessible taxi at Cambridge may not be available for over an hour and there was no guarantee one would be able to return them to the station for the last train back to London.
Unwilling to risk more issues, the pair said they “chose to call it a day” and headed back to their homes.
Mr Harvey got home at 00:20 GMT on Sunday, nine hours after his journey had started.
“I travel a lot,” Mr Harvey said. “I’ve had some really good journeys and really bad journeys and I said to my mum if this was my first train out I would have never travelled again.
“Obviously it’s very frustrating in this day and age, it shouldn’t be happening.
“But I’m very calm in these situations because I could easily be annoyed about a lot of things that happen daily, it’s good to have a calm head rather than be angry all the time.”
Mr Harvey said staff at Cambridge told him the lift was regularly out of order.
“It shows how one lift can make such a big impact – because that one lift all the rest of it happened,” he said.
“And it probably wasn’t thought about until I arrived.”
Mr Harvey said more should be done to make transport accessible to all.
“Having things accessible is not just for those who have disabilities, but it’s for everyone,” he said. “Anyone at any given time can acquire disability, may it be short or long term.”
Mr Harvey emphasised that the majority of staff he spoke to at both Cambridge and Ely stations were “really understanding and friendly” and were “also frustrated” by the issues.
‘Broken system’
Ms Mathias, from Manningtree in Essex, herself a diversity campaigner, said it had been an “eye-opening experience”.
“I’m not angry at any individual staff or taxi driver, in their own way they were trying to find work arounds.
“People were trying their best but it’s a broken system.”
“There were too many unnecessary obstacles along the way. It was exhausting and truly gutting to feel we had no choice but to just give up on our plans.”
A Greater Anglia spokesperson apologised for the issues, and said: “We will be trying to contact Mr Harvey to provide an apology to him and those travelling with him for letting them down.
“A full investigation will be conducted into what happened, with the clear aim of preventing a repetition of such an incident in future.”
