One in three commuters standing in rush-hour trains

RAIL passengers are being “treated like animals” and suffering unbearable levels of overcrowding with services now carrying more than twice as many people as they should at peak times.

One in three commuters, equivalent to nearly 100,000 people, were forced to stand on some of the busiest services arriving into London last year.

Figures from the Department for Transport found the most overcrowded service was the 6.57am Brighton to Bedford service, which goes through the capital. It is designed to carry 420 passengers but regularly has 960 on board during a “typical” weekday.

Govia Thameslink Railway, the company that runs the service, has been heavily criticised for the chaos that has engulfed the Southern network, which has resulted in passengers suffering months of delays, cancellations and station overcrowding.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union announced yesterday that guards on the network would stage a five-day strike from Aug 8 as part of a long-running dispute.

Baroness Randerson, the Lib Dem transport spokesman, said: “We would not treat animals like this, so how can we treat commuters like this?”

More than 580,000 passengers arrived in London by train on a typical peak hour service between 7am and 10am last autumn, an increase of 3.2 per cent over the previous year.

The latest government statistics highlight the “top 10” worst train serv- ices, which were between 61 per cent and 129 per cent over capacity in 2015.

The Department for Transport said 44 per cent of commuters on services arriving into Blackfriars had to stand and almost a third were unable to find a seat on trains into stations including Waterloo, Fenchurch Street and Moorgate. Some 94,279 people arriving into London stations between 8am and 9am had to stand.

The second most crowded train into London was the 07:34 Great Western service from Didcot in Oxfordshire to Paddington, which has a capacity for 242 passengers but regularly carried 484.

Paul Maynard, the rail minister, said the figures “reveal the unprecedented scale of passenger demand”. He said the Government was spending £40billion to improve the network, and was working with rail firms to minimise disruption.

David Sidebottom, passenger director of Transport Focus, said: “We need a big increase in capacity. This means continued investment in new and longer trains.”