After Denise Welch’s husband Lincoln Townley faced a ’95 hour trip home’ thanks to cancelled trains and wrong information, the Loose Women star had a few things to say

Fuming Denise Welch went on a mega rant about the state of the train service in the UK after her husband was left stranded at a station.

The Loose Women star let rip as she posted a video from the platform after a forgettable few days of attempted travel. She lost her patience after herself facing massive delays following on from her husband’s trip from hell this weekend. She blasted the service on Instagram, demanding to know the reasons behind the “terrible” state of our transport system.

She started the video: “I’m so angry. Two days ago Lincoln had to change 25,000 times to get back from London to Wilmslow. Then he gets to Leicester and they say ‘sorry mate, there’s no train from here because there’s no staff’. Where are the staff? Why is there now no staff?

“It takes him 95 hours to get home and he had to get a taxi at great expense to Nuneaton because nobody was telling him what was happening. So yesterday, unwell I tried to get a train from Stockport and it had three carriages. It was like those scenes in Japan with their faces up against the glass.”

Captioning her lengthy complaint, she wrote: “F***ing fuming!!!! @avantiwestcoast @lner and whoever is in charge of track and signal maintenance!!!! What are we paying for!!! Absolute disgrace and you actually want to put the prices up!!!!!!! And….you want us to leave our cars at home!!!!” Mirror Online have approached both companies for comment.

Denise Welch’s husband Lincoln Townley ‘took 95 hours to get home’ ( 
Image:
Getty Images for BAFTA LA)

She refused to keep her thoughts to herself after a disastrous few days of travel ( 
Image:
denise_welch / Instagram)
It’s not the first time the star has had a grumble about the trains. A few years ago she Twitter row with Virgin over their refusal to give her a free upgrade to First Class. She was travelling to London on a £79 second class ticket this afternoon when the row began. Her first Tweet to the firm suggested they upgrade her to compensate for a disappointing £413 First Class London journey two weeks earlier.

On that occasion, she had been on her way to a charity event with a ticket paid for by her employers. To compensate her at the time, the train manager offered her Prosecco and a bunch of flowers – but this was not satisfactory. So when Virgin replied to her Tweet today refusing her request, she replied: “May I ask why when as a very regular traveller I spent £413 and got not even a hot coffee?”

Virgin Trains Tweeted back: “Are you referring to the time we offered you a bottle of champagne?” To which Denise took exception – saying it was half a bottle of Prosecco and she didn’t drink. She said her Tweet had been ‘tongue in cheek’ – but stood by her complaint.

She said: “I just think prices are absolutely ridiculous and if you pay that much money and don’t get the service you pay for they should compensate you and as financial compensation is not up for grabs then they should do something else. On that occasion, she had been on her way to a work event with a ticket paid for by her employers.

“That ticket was £413 – I didn’t pay because the journey was for a work event so work paid but that isn’t the point. That’s the price of a holiday.” She said the train manager on her disappointing journey had been ‘fantastic’. She added: “And I wasn’t kicking off, I’m not like that. But my point was that Virgin think by giving me a quarter of a bottle of Prosecco when I don’t drink, I shouldn’t be upgraded as compensation. This is not just for me but anybody who paid £413 and something has gone wrong.”