Commuters face second day of train misery

Commuters face second day of train misery

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Train passengers in Rochdale have faced a second day of crowded carriages, delays, and reduced services this morning (12 January).

Passengers in Littleborough, Smithy Bridge, and Rochdale have complained of uncomfortable journeys as their regular four-carriage services have been reduced to just two carriages. This, coupled with delays due to bad weather, has resulted in commuters being left on the platform or having to make alternative travel arrangements to get to work.

Lynda Ashton, from Smithy Bridge, said the 8.00 service from Smithy Bridge to Manchester was delayed until 8.28, which meant she couldn’t get on the 8.07 service as there was too many people.

Mrs Ashton filmed the scene as passengers attempted to squeeze into carriages on the 8.07 service, and later took a photo of the cramped conditions on the late-running 8.00 service.

She said: “There’s normally four carriages, which is fine for the amount of people. Two carriages meant I missed the first train and then the delayed service was awful. I couldn’t move my arms it was so squashed. People couldn’t get on when the train got to Mills Hill.”

Mrs Ashton reported a similar situation yesterday (11 January), when a service from Leeds was suspended due to high winds. She said, “There must have been about 100 people on the platform who couldn’t get on the train.

“I think a lot of people disappeared and had to drive to work. I ended up working from home because of it, but some people don’t have that option. Smithybridge is often missed out anyway, but all it takes is one delay and everything goes wrong.

“I intend to complain today, it’s not acceptable. The communication from Northern Rail over the last two days has been slow.”

A Northern Rail spokesperson said: “On Wednesday 11 January and Thursday 12 January, trees had fallen on the line near to Milner Royd and Hipperholme respectively. As a result of these obstructions Northern services experienced a number of delays, particularly during the busy morning peak.

“Unfortunately those delays had a further knock on effect in that we were unable to get all carriages where they were needed and some services therefore comprised of two carriages rather than the usual three or four.

“We completely understand the frustration felt by customers as such services would be even busier than usual, but we worked with our colleagues across the rail industry to return the network to normal running as soon as practicable.

“We always seek to use all carriages at our disposal and deploy all available resources across our network, which not only encompasses the biggest towns and cities across the north of England but is also seeing unprecedented demand with a 50 percent increase in passenger numbers over the past decade.”

The spokesperson added: “We recently outlined our commitment to modernise our stations and services across our network. We are in the process of refurbishing our trains and phasing out the Pacers, which will be removed by 2019 and replaced by 281 new, purpose built, carriages.

“Of course, this can’t happen overnight and our trains will be phased in and out of refurbishment in order to ensure minimum impact on our daily services. Further changes are on the way, but we ask that our customers bear with us whilst we continue to make the significant improvements to their stations and services, delivering a rail service fit for the 21st Century.”