Wandering woman hitches a ride on train
The lady, complete with shopping bags, is thought to have walked off the platform at Bristol Parkway before she was seen crossing railway lines and strolling on the track towards Winterbourne.
Her walk caused mainline services to be suspended from 9am to 9.30am on Saturday, before a cross-country train driver stopped and drove her back to the station.
School caretaker John Hobbs, 61, of Greystoke Avenue, Westbury-on-Trym, snapped the woman when he was waiting to photograph a special train coming from Birmingham.
He said: "I'm a railway photographer and the train I was after didn't run in the end.
"I was just down the road from Bristol Parkway, on an old brick bridge, and I heard three guys in orange jackets shouting.
"The shouting stopped and a woman emerged from the bushes, walked under my bridge and on towards the next.
"An HST (high-speed train) stopped, the driver got out and had a few words with her and took her back to the station."
John said the woman appeared to be quite "laid back" as she strolled along.
He said: "She had a couple of bags with her and I thought I'd take a few pictures; it was a bit unusual."
A British Transport Police spokesman confirmed his officers were called to a report of a woman on the tracks near Bristol Parkway but by the time they arrived she was picked up by the train driver.
He said the woman, aged 38, was trying to get home, she was not in a disturbed state and an investigation is on-going.
Train services were halted between 9am and 9.30am, he said.
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