Andy McDonald MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, responding to today’s official figures from the Department of Transport that reveal the extent of overcrowding on trains, with some services now carrying more than twice as many people as they should at peak times, said:

“These figures show what passengers already know, that overcrowding on trains has reached an unbearable level. Nobody should have to suffer being crammed into dangerously full carriages as part of their daily commute, especially with mobility difficulties.

“Much of this overcrowding is taking place on the failing GTR franchise, which the Tory Government are backing to the hilt despite it regularly delivering the worst services in the country.

“Passengers are being treated like cash cows by a Government that cares more about boosting the profits of private train operating companies than it does about running decent public services.

“For people contending with overcrowding, service delays and cancellations on a daily basis, it’s hard to see how new trains are going to make much of a difference at all. It’s the franchising system that allows this merciless extraction of profit and Labour is clear that this is what has to end if the travelling public are to get the rail services their high fares and funding deserve.”