Rail union leaders have expressed "disbelief" at an official report on passenger satisfaction levels, saying their members were having to cope with overcrowding, unhappiness with delays and complaints about fare prices on a daily basis.
A survey of more than 28,000 passengers by the Transport Focus watchdog found a slight increase in overall satisfaction to 83per cent in autumn 2015 - up from 81per cent year-on-year.
But unions pointed to other information in the report showing that over half of Britain's train companies showed a fall in passengers' satisfaction with enough room to sit or stand.
A total of 15 out of 26 operating companies saw their score drop, while satisfaction with punctuality fell for nine of the 26 operating companies.
There was a big drop for satisfaction with toilet facilities on trains. Fifteen of the 26 companies saw their score fall.
Unhappiness with luggage facilities was most widespread of all. Here, 16 of the 26 companies showed a fall in passenger satisfaction.
The report was published after another week of delays and disruption to services because of signal failures, brown down trains - and strong sunlight.
Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the TSSA union, said the official statistics "buried bad news" about passenger dissatisfaction with rail travel.
"Commuters are enduring among the most overcrowded conditions in Europe, with the highest prices and the most confusing ticket tariffs, with rolling stock so old, especially in the north, where passengers say it should be called a laughing stock.
Incidents over the past week included severe disruption to commuters between Edinburgh and Glasgow due to a signalling problem last Monday.
On Thursday, there was a a problem near Berwick-upon-Tweed causing delays of up to 45 minutes to trains between Edinburgh and Newcastle.
Two days later, CrossCountry and Virgin Trains East Coast were hit by overhead wire problems at Alnmouth, Northumberland.
Meanwhile, signalling problems between Whitehaven and Workington caused delays of up to 50 minutes between Barrow-in-Furness and Carlisle.
Other incidents ranged from broken down trains in Cornwall and mid-Wales, and Bedfordshire which caused 30 minute delays and replacement buses to be laid on.
In Kent, they said services were hit by strong sunlight, while there were numerous signalling problems across the UK.
"Privatisation isn't working, and passengers are fed up."
Mick Cash, leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, said: "People were stunned by claims of satisfaction with train companies' performance.
"The reality is being crammed on clapped out, overcrowded and unreliable services on a daily basis, with the private operators laughing all the way to the bank.
"There should be a proper, scientific survey of passenger satisfaction based on what is happening in the real world."
Jacqueline Starr, managing director of customer experience at the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators and Network Rail, said: "Our railway is benefiting from one of the biggest investment programmes in its history, major improvement work that is producing better stations, better trains and better journeys.
"We are sorry when people do not get the service they deserve. We never want people to suffer delays or disruption."
Rail Minister Claire Perry said the overall satisfaction - which is at its highest level since autumn 2012 - was "a welcome sign that our record investment is starting to deliver results".
Meanwhile, Virgin Trains is offering discounted fares to parts of northern England hit by flooding, in a bid to boost tourism.
Passengers can save 30 per cent on advance tickets to destinations in Cumbria, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Northumberland from February 9.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel