Train was diverted +++ Nobody was allowed to get off for 20 hours +++ Passengers believed in kidnapping

Because their Amtrak train was diverted, dozens of passengers believed they had been hijacked (icon image). AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

Dozens of passengers on a car train between Virginia and Orlando alerted the emergency call. Because their train was suddenly diverted to a remote part of South Carolina and no one was allowed to get off. 20 hours long. What caused some of the 563 passengers to panic because they believed they had been kidnapped.

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The Amtrak train left Virginia at 5 p.m. Monday and was scheduled to arrive in Orlando, Florida, at 10 a.m. the next morning. But when it got light, passengers discovered they were stranded far from the main line outside the rural town of Denmark, South Carolina. The staff informed everyone that there had been a diversion due to an accident on the rail.

But when the train was still standing on Wednesday morning and the passengers were forbidden to open the windows, let alone the doors, many became terrified. A passenger posted a video on Instagram of a conductor saying, “Stop calling the police. They weren’t kidnapped and we’re not holding them hostage! We will give you more information as soon as we have it!”

It was not until Wednesday followingnoon that the slow train drove once more and let the passengers disembark in the small town of Sanford in Florida. Rail company Amtrak, which according to a spokesman “did everything we might,” is already bracing for a wave of lawsuits.

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