Member Article

NE has UK's busiest train

A North East rail route has today been revealed as the most overcrowded in the country. The 7.59am Durham to Newcastle train was shown to be running at 88% over capacity, according to environmental transport campaign Transport 2000. This is more overcrowded than the busiest trains in London and Liverpool, which top out at 85% above capacity. The study shows the ten most crowded trains in the UK, and another North East journey, the 8am train from Morpeth to Newcastle, is number six on the list at 58%.

Julia Thomas, Transport 2000’s public transport campaigner, said: “It’s very easy to blame rail operators for overcrowding problems, but actually a lot of it is down to the Government’s rail policy – they have issued ‘no growth’ franchises for the past 10 years and they’ve been promoting a policy of fares hikes to get people to travel off-peak, but passengers really don’t have that much flexibility. In addition, the very short time periods covered by franchise agreements does not encourage any infrastructure investment by the rail operators.”

Transport 2000’s ‘Sardine Man’, who compiled the list, will be travelling on all ten of the trains starting from tomorrow. His progress can be followed at www.sardineman.org.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .