Commuter out to stop crush chaos

A TRAIN commuter is fighting a one-man campaign to end overcrowding on Oldham’s loopline.

Michael Ashton (45), from Shaw, says the problem on Northern Rail’s trains is so bad that people are often unable to get on board.

He catches the train every day from Shaw to work in Manchester and has seen up to 15 people turned away. He says the same applies to the peak-time evening service.

Mr Ashton says the problem begins once the autumn timetable starts and believes Northern Rail is not meeting its commitments to provide enough trains and carriages.

He has now made a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Transport asking for a copy of the timetable and train plan agreed by Northern Rail. He said: “At other times it’s fine, but every year, when the timetable changes to autumn, it’s chaos and gets worse until Christmas.

“You get four times the amount of people than in the summer. It’s overcrowded every day. When you phone up you get fobbed off.

“But it won’t be a trainline for much longer so I think they are not putting enough resources into it.”.

A Northern Rail spokesman insisted leaves on the track was a perennial problem.

He said: “The reason the gentleman has encountered issues on this particular service is because we operate a revised timetable on this route over autumn months due to seasonal safety issues, such as leaf-fall, which is the railway equivalent of black ice.”

“To make sure we minimise any impact on our service we put on a reduced timetable for autumn only. But we lengthen the trains and add extra carriages to try to ensure any disruption is kept to a minimum.

“It’s something we have been doing for the last three years. We always review the situation and look to improve it for passengers.”

Mr Ashton said: “I’m not sure the leaf argument is valid as the Victorians did not have this problem and trees have been around a long time.”