Talk:Train overcrowding in the United Kingdom

Questions

• Definition? When is a train officially "overcrowded"?
• Measures to reduce overcrowding. When are passengers upgraded to 1st? When can seat reservations be ignored?
• Stock. How much rolling stock is there? Is any more being purchased? What effect does this have? Why are some lines refusing to buy more stock "as there is no money", despite having over-packed trains which are surely making a profit for them.
• Safety. Are there any sourceable comments on the effects of overcrowding on safety, either generally, in minor disturbances (passengers in seats don't fall over on rough stops), or in accidents.
• Current overcrowding levels. Variations by region, operator and especially changes following operator changes. Is online booking and the growth in pre-booked seats making overcrowding worse, as passengers stand to allow small paper tickets to ride in comfort.
• Historical overcrowding. Has it always been this way?
• Influence of the out-of-town "parkway" stations developed since the '80s.

Andy Dingley (talk) 10:42, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: Good questions. I think the definition of "overcrowded" is something like when passengers have to stand for over 20 minutes, but the official definitions are in the cited sources. (See also the external link I've just added to [1]) And yes, it's got much worse since privatisation, for the reasons given in the article. However, the "big bad" seems (surprisingly) not to be the private rail operators, but the lack of signalling upgrades during that time. Would you be interested in filling the article out? -- The Anome (talk) 11:26, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Some of the signalling (and other) upgrades can be a cause of the problem as well. We now have (in some places) a very "efficient" rail system - in that a service operates over the absolute minimum of capital equipment (fixed and moving). The drawback is lack of resilience: if anything fails, the chaos ripples outwards. Often the result is to inconvenience the passengers even further, as a delayed service has to be cancelled altogether to avoid disrupting others. If stock is then left in the wrong position, this may disrupt an early return train the following day as there is no spare stock available at that en of the line. Accelerating inter-city services are likely to make this worse, as it becomes increasingly difficult to fit slower or stopping commuter services into the limited spaces left in the service diagrams. I live on the South Wales Main Line, where much of our whole economy is becoming based more and more on being a commuter dormitory for Bristol, yet we're having services developed at vast expense to provide improved high-end services of little demand.

I'm interested in this article and I'll do what I can, but I have zero time right now. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:42, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Andy, I believe whether or not you can upgrade to first class (i.e., just go and sit in there if there's no room in standard) is down to the discretion of the guard. I was on an overcrowded London Midland service from London to Birmingham one Sunday a couple of years ago. It was literally standing room only, I seem to recall, and the guard announced that passengers could move to first class if they wanted a seat. On the line I use most frequently (Birmingham–Leicester) they will sometimes let you use first class if there is nowhere else to sit, although again it tends to be down to the individual guard, and usually there's only about twelve seats in the compartment. This is Paul (talk) 16:10, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

"Is online booking and the growth in pre-booked seats making overcrowding worse, as passengers stand to allow small paper tickets to ride in comfort." If you see a seat which is reserved but the person has not taken it, then you can sit in it (but have to move if they turn up). Of course not everyone knows this and often there are empty seats while people stand. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 17:04, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. A big publicity campaign to let passengers know they can take unoccupied reserved seats, combined with changes to signage, would make a big difference. (Eliminating first-class seating and reservations entirely on highly overcrowded trains would be even more effective, although it would generate new problems of its own.) But it would also depress sales of highly profitable first-class tickets, so the railway companies are unlikely to do it on their own initiative. -- The Anome (talk) 08:02, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Notability

Not sure this is worthy of a stand-alone article as it is as the points raised could be just a few lines in the related articles like Rail transport in Great Britain, it appears more to be a winge article. MilborneOne (talk) 12:16, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, there are some serious NPOV issues here. Optimist on the run (talk) 13:58, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree - this should be covered within Rail transport in Great Britain. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 15:42, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

I kind of agree, but would be interested to see where this gets taken. If we can produce something that's informative and balanced then it would be worth keeping. Rail overcrowding has been an issue in the UK for as long as I can remember, but I do wonder if it's also an issue in other countries. Any thoughts? This is Paul (talk) 16:14, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

It's more than just a transport issue in the UK: rail overcrowding is a political hot-spot issue in the dormitory suburbs of the Home Counties commuter belt, one of the regions where the current government gets its core support. There is a lot of rage-filled coverage on this in the British press. See here for a lovely local news story claiming British trains are more overcrowded than Indian railways -- and quoting an Indian railway manager to justify the claim. -- The Anome (talk) 07:48, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Train overcrowding has been the subject of UK public debate for decades, and was one of the main reasons for privatisation (capital release for capacity improvements). But hey ho, "not news"! Maybe someone can rustle up some mention of a crowded train in the pre-grouping era in one of those things, them things with bits of paper glued to a spine, and then maybe it will qualify as encyclopedic material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krusty Kristovsky (talk • contribs) 14:10, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Passengers unaware of seat reservation etiquette

I've restored a phrase about many train passengers being unaware that they could sit in a reserved seat if the passenger didn't turn up. This was a paraphrase of "[Passengers can sit in reserved seats]. But the problem is there is no sign that tells you to do this. So even on busy trains people will walk past empty reserved seats" from the source. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 08:51, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

@91.110.126.37: could you reply here please? Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 11:17, 5 December 2018 (UTC)