A Cross Passenger on Cross Country Trains

I caught the 14.14 from Birmingham International to Oxford on 23rd Sept. It was a very short train & was completely packed when it arrived. People were standing throughout the train. I am 71 & have a disabled railcard. Standing on a moving train is quite difficult. Someone did kindly give up their seat for me at Banbury. This is not the first time this has happened to me. 

If I pay for a ticket I expect to get a seat, especially as I rarely travel in peak times. Train companies appear to treat paying passengers no better than cattle & should be ashamed.  I met a middle aged lady who had had to stand from Scotland.

The refreshment trolley was unable to operate because of all the people & luggage in the aisles. The shelves above the seats are too shallow for a lot of cases & elderly people or women cannot lift heavy cases that high. The luggage racks by the doors are totally inadequate for the number of people travelling. 

Surely companies have a pretty good idea how many tickets have been sold & how many are likely to sell on the day. It is their job to provide adequate trains to meet the demand. This just seemed like total incompetence to me, which at the least causes people huge discomfort & at worst is a H&S risk. 

I sent a complaint to Cross Country Trains. The following are their responses.

"I am sorry for how busy the service was, our franchise does not have the resources to acquire longer or more trains, but we do understand that crowded trains are a daily problem that we face.Unfortunately we have only been allocated a set amount of coaches which is set out in our franchise agreement.

Please be assured that we are looking at ways that we can alleviate the pressure on our busiest trains, by altering the workings of our higher capacity trains to more closely match demand.  We also encourage those that are flexible with their travel plans to travel on quieter trains. Whilst I'm sure you will appreciate the challenges we face to try and provide enough seats for all of those passengers travelling, it does not take away the fact that your journeys with us have not been as you would hope to expect and so I would again like to apologise for any discomfort caused.

For future journeys I would recommend you reserve a seat, you can do this at your point of purchase, by calling 03447369123, at any ticket office or by using our Ten Minute reservation service via the following link https://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/tickets/ten-minute-reservations

I responded:-

• "Our franchise does not have the resources to acquire longer or more trains" - Why not? If you don't have the capacity to meet demand & don't have sufficient carriages or finances to increase provision then you should not be the operator, especially as you admit that "Crowded trains are a daily problem that we face".
• "We also encourage those that are flexible with their travel plans to travel on quieter trains" - That is no help to many people who have no options.
• "I would recommend you reserve a seat" - I did on the outward journey, but had no way of knowing which return train I would be able to catch.

Nothing encourages me to be confident that "should you choose to travel with us again that you have a much better experience". Basically Cross Country Trains know there is a serious problem, but have no plans to make the experience any better in the future. That is really not acceptable. I don't have to stand if I book a seat on a plane, why should trains be any different? I wonder what the company would have done had I had a heart attack through standing.

You have not addressed the issue of the lack of accessible luggage space at all.

Cross Country responded:-

"Our franchise, like all others operating in the UK, is set by the Department for Transport (DfT) who prescribe the services we must provide and the frequency of trains to deliver this. This specification was set by the DfT in 2007 at the start of our franchise and we procured all available trains to deliver this. Since then the railways have seen unprecedented numbers of people seeking to use rail as their preferred form of travel and our trains, like those of other operators, are seeing instances of crowding throughout the day on many services. We have recently extended our franchise for a further 3 years and we have been provided some additional coaches to provide further seating for our passengers however access to new coaches is limited. There are currently no trains suitable for us to lease in the UK, this situation is unlikely to change for many years.

As we are limited to the number of coaches we have, we try to encourage passengers to travel on quieter services by offering cheap advance fares. This does help passengers who cannot choose to travel on quieter services as if we didn’t do it the services during peak times would be much busier than they currently are.

As mentioned in my previous email, we provide a number of options for passengers looking to reserve seating for their journey. If you were unsure of the train you were travelling on you still can reserve a seat up to 10 minutes prior to the scheduled departure time by using our ten minute reservation service via the following link https://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/tickets/ten-minute-reservations

I can fully appreciate your concern about the number of passengers travelling on our trains. However, unlike bus and air travel, there is no legal limit for the number of passengers on a train. This is because trains are deemed safe no matter how many people are on board. Under the Health & Safety at Work Act (1974) train operators must manage risks from overcrowding ‘so far as is reasonably practicable’. They may be liable for problems arising in hot weather but given that trains are walk-on services, it is not feasible to limit passengers to the number of seats."

I responded:- 
 

It would appear that much of the responsibility for passenger discomfort & annoyance with train services lies with the DfT. In particular the fact that the spec's they set for franchises are not reviewed & updated frequently enough. This would appear to make it impossible for franchises to respond quickly to the demands of increased passenger numbers. It has long baffled me why successive governments have never produced an integrated transport policy for the UK.

I had no idea of the option to reserve a seat 10 mins prior to departure time & will use this in future if I don't know what time I am returning  home. So thank you for the information.

I have to say I am amazed that there is no H&S requirement for any limit to numbers travelling on trains. While I can understand that it is a walk on service & passengers would be unhappy if they were refused access to a train, that does happen with buses, which have advertised maximum numbers standing & seated. I cannot see any reason why a similar rule should not apply to trains. 

The information you have given me confirms my view that train passengers often get a pretty rough & expensive deal. What does surprise me is that train operators do not make more fuss about this situation. It would seem to be in the companies interest to publicise this information widely & encourage passengers to become involved in order to make our train service at least comparable to the service standards on continental Europe.

I didn't expect to be sympathetic to Cross Country Trains, but I am. The whole set up seems ridiculously incompetent to me & the root of the problem appears to be the Department for Transport. The least important people in the equation are the passengers. 

Surely passenger needs & safety should be at the heart of Government policy. I can't help feeling that a transport system which is privatised & driven by shareholder profit rather than excellent service values is never going to achieve customer satisfaction under the current system. 

Anyone who travels on trains in Europe knows it can be done. Why not here?