It’s no tea party at Boston

East Midlands Railway is not capable of meeting the demands of customers on the Poacher Line.

EMR is running a service with two- or four-carriage trains on the line between Nottingham and Skegness, which was served by eight or more carriage trains in years gone by.

The customers are there, the ticket sales are there, and the potential to grow is there. It’s just a shame the trains are not fit for purpose.

Some examples of how poor the service has been this summer:

On August 14 (a Sunday, which is a peak travelling time for tourists going to the coast), some passengers arrived at Boston railway station to catch the 0850 Nottingham-Skegness (a

two-car Class 170), which had departed Nottingham 25 minutes late at 0915.

By the time it reached Boston 39 minutes late, the train was so busy that a lot of passengers couldn’t board and had to wait for the 0950 Nottingham-Skegness, which arrived at Boston 21 minutes late at 1137. That meant some passengers had been waiting at Boston for two hours on one of the hottest days of the summer so far.

Also, running buses from Nottingham to Skegness and Skegness to Nottingham is not the way to run a railway service. People who buy a ticket to ride on a train want to travel by train, not by bus. They also pay the train ticket price, not the bus price.

There is also a lack of staff on stations such as Boston, with the ticket hall closed for too many hours in a day.

I witnessed a station cleaner advising people about the situation, regarding their travelling. That person was doing a great job above and beyond their position.

Darren Bentley, Boston