Rail lift campaigner gets stuck

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 24th Oct 2007

A woman who fought for better disabled access at her local railway station has ended up stuck in the new lift.

Eva McCracken, 58, had campaigned for several years for Markinch station in Fife to be upgraded. Network Rail finally agreed to pay for a new lift.

On Saturday, Mrs McCracken was trying to reach the southbound platform to catch the Edinburgh train. The lift descended for about 1m before stopping. Network Rail has apologised and said it was investigating what went wrong.

Mrs McCracken, who is in a wheelchair, was with her husband David when the failure occurred. She told the BBC Scotland news website: "It was very tedious and very anxiety- making. My husband was quite anxious."

The pair were stuck for an hour-and-a-half before firefighters were able to manually pump the lift back up.

Her long-running campaign for better facilities had focused on building a ramp between platforms because of concerns about the reliability of lifts. She said: "I don't think I will ever go in it again."