Off the rails 2: Passenger videos train staff yelling at each other after yet another cancelled service

Australian Michelle Fettroll, 50, usually gets aboard the 18.33 from Brighton to Emsworth - a journey often plagued by severe delays and cancellations.

On June 10, after a string of cancellations, Ms Fettroll took a gamble after separate train staff told her to go in different directions, and took a train up to Three Bridges in an attempt to get home.

Off the rails 1: How many guards does it take to close a train door? None, say bosses - they should be helping passengers instead

But when she passed through Horsham, Ms Fettroll’s train was “dumped” and the passengers were told to get off.

While the on-duty Southern Rail drivers disembarked because they had used up all their hours, commuters wandered around aimlessly searching for answers.

Ms Fettroll took out her phone and videoed commuters joking that they should get some wine - and train staff shouting at each other.

She eventually got home to her disabled husband at 11pm - nearly five hours after starting her one hour journey home.

Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) - which runs Southern Rail - has been heavily criticised for cancellations and an all-round poor service - and with a 24-hour strike today, commuters are facing more misery.

Ms Fettroll, a retail manager, said: “It’s disgusting. I live in Emsworth and commute, every day, to Brighton and back.

“I normally get the 18.33pm home.

“There are usually delays and cancellations, but on June 10, there were loads of cancellations.

“I was told by two different train staff to go in two different directions to get home.

“But I ended up heading to Three Bridges, to change and try and get home that way - but when I got to Horsham, my train was just cancelled again.

“It’s just so frustrating because my husband is on dialysis. Nobody knew what to do. They looked chaotic.

“They didn’t know what to tell me. One person was saying one thing, someone else was saying something else.”

Ms Fettroll said hundreds of angry commuters were wandering around the platforms “like sheep” when she decided to try and do something and began filming the chaos.

She said: “The conductor on my train literally told me to go in the office and complain - that’s all he knew.

“It’s not the conductor’s fault. By the time I got Horsham, it was half past eight.

“All the trains had just been dumped at Horsham - you can hear them on the video using that word, ‘dumped’.

“We were all just standing around. We were like sheep. The English take a long time to complain, so I just said, ‘we’ve go to do something’.”

The video shows commuters joking about hitting the bottle to deal with the stress and, later, two guards shouting at each other.

One is heard saying: “We can’t cancel another train.”

Another replies: “Alright then, we won’t cancel them, we’ll just block everything up.”

The first man says: “It’s up to them - it’s their [the passengers’] problem.”

The second man says: “It’s not their problem. It’s our problem. We’re the ones that have to listen to these people.”

The other says: “I’ll tell you what - if you want to ****** be in control, you pull it back.”

Ms Fettroll said she later bypassed GTR’s customer service and phoned the firm’s commercial director David Innis demanding answers.

She said: “I was very polite and and I was just asking for some answers. I wanted to know what was going on, and why this happened all the time.

“But he sounded thick, like he didn’t care.

“He told me to wait while he moved and the line just went dead. I was shocked.”

A Southern spokesman said: “We apologise to our passengers for the levels of disruption they are currently experiencing.

“This has been due in the main to very high levels of sickness, and a reluctance to work overtime among our train crews.

“This has meant that regrettably, we have been forced to cancel some of our trains which is compromising our ability to operate a robust train service on a day-to-day basis.

“The video shows our staff trying to do the best they can - for our passengers - under very trying circumstances.”