08.03.13
Baby on board
For once, it was a happy reason for a delay on a Southeastern service from London out to Kent last night.
A woman gave birth to a baby daughter, and fellow passengers have been congratulating the new mother via Twitter, with many suggesting the carriage where Phoebe was born be named after her, or that she should get free rail travel for life. The train operating company also plans to send a bunch of flowers.
It’s a pretty remarkable story, and an eventful journey for those onboard.
Thankfully, mother and baby are both doing well, and everyone got home at the end of the night. It must be a rare occurrence for staff to deal with, but Southeastern seem to have handled it successfully.
The original story from Southeastern is below:
Commuters onboard the 18.18 departure were surprised to hear driver Rob Friend put a call out for a medical staff over the tannoy. A lady, boarding the train at Borough Green had gone into labour five minutes into her journey.
Fortunately one of the passengers was a midwife and was able to assist until the emergency services arrived. There was also a nurse onboard giving medical assistance and an off-duty policeman who helped the conductor evacuate the carriage for the exclusive use of the mum-to-be, her partner and her mother.
The baby was born within thirty minutes at around 19:40.
Conductor Colin Brooker joked: "We had everyone we needed right there on the train. We were only missing a vicar to baptise the baby!"
“I kept all the passengers onboard informed about the delay and there was a big cheer when we announced the baby was born.”
The dad of four added: "In all my 41 years working on the railway I've never experienced anything like this. It was amazing. I'll be having some celebration drinks tomorrow to wet the baby's head."
The conductor and driver continued to work the rest of evening shift which ended at one this morning.
Both mum and baby are reported to be doing well in hospital. Southeastern's sent the mum some flowers to say congratulations!
The train was delayed by around 37 minutes.
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