A passenger on a train to Edinburgh from Newcastle on Saturday morning has fumed after the service ended up ‘crammed’.
Hannah Colley arrived at Newcastle Central Station to find the platform already bustling before the train approached. After leaving at 9.11am, passengers heading to Edinburgh on the TransPennine Express (TPE) service were advised to avoid travelling or get a later train.
An announcement on the service said too many people were onboard, and some would have to be left behind. Edinburgh Live spoke to Hannah, who said: “They were shouting at people to move up the train, but everyone was already crammed in as much as possible.
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“The atmosphere was awful, people were fighting over seats they’d claimed to have reserved even though you can’t reserve seats when it’s that busy. They also said there was two trains worth of passengers on our train.
“It felt dangerous, and it felt like they didn’t care that everyone was so crammed in.”
This comes after TransPennine Express cancelled 29 trains and altered 18 more on Friday, due to ‘higher than normal’ sickness levels. The rail company were forced to cancel and alter services after the illnesses and a training backlog as a result of Covid.
A spokesperson for the company said: “Usually, we will make these changes the day before to give customers as much notice as possible.
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“In some cases, we will try to do this several days before if there is a significant change to the normal timetable. Some TPE services may still face ‘on-the-day’ challenges, resulting in short-notice cancellations or service amendments made on a day-to-day basis.
“We are sorry for any disruption that this may cause to journey in the coming days and ask you to allow additional time for travel and to check carefully - up to the last minute - for any changes to train times.”
TPE have been approached for comment on overcrowding issues.
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