A St Neots family became trapped in a lift at St Neots station with their baby for almost an hour and a half and are now calling on a train company to prevent the same “stressful” experience from happening to others.

Vikki Hutchison, 24, her partner Paul Fraser, 26, and one-year-old daughter Sophie were in the lift at about 3.20pm on Tuesday (January 27) when the doors did not open to take them to the upper floor. They tried to use the telephone inside to call for help but discovered that it did not work. They then pressed the alarm and after about five minutes a member of staff attended and tried to release them.

However, they watched through the window as the emergency cord snapped, leaving them stranded. They were then told than an engineer would need to travel from Peterborough and would take half an hour to get there - a journey which turned into an hour and 25 minutes before he arrived and freed them. Fortunately, Ms Hutchison said they did have supplies for Sophie.

She added: “When the cord snapped it was bit of a worry, I did get quite upset to begin with and really panicky.

“It was quite cramped and hot in there. It was very stressful and we did panic as the lift dropped an inch when we were in it. The two members of staff were amazing and kept us calm as our daughter was getting upset and annoyed from being in the buggy for so long.

“We hope that they [Great Northern] will sort it out so that it won’t happen to someone else.”

A spokesman for Great Northern said: “We have a very clear process in place to assist customers on the very rare occasions when this type of incident takes place. Unfortunately the maintenance engineer attending the emergency call out was delayed en route due to a road traffic accident, resulting in the response time took longer than usual. The fault with the lift was rectified on the same day.

“We would like to apologise to Mr Frazer and his family for their involvement in this distressing situation and in our letter sent in the post today we have offered the family £50 in travel vouchers in recompense.”