Should UK be more child friendly on the railways ?

Question

Hello, we are a family travelling by train all over Europe, Australia, China, Cuba, the U.S. and the Philippines.
We found it is quite difficult in the UK:
1 - Steps up to platforms (and HELL on the underground)
2 - Bus connections with no pushchair space (terrible)
3 - Rip off fares (hell, they want a 5 year old to pay!!!)
4 - No buffet cars to warm up our baby food
5 - Rude passengers who don't appreciate children
6 - Rude and abusive passengers
7 - Hell on wheels with no space for our pushchair
8 - No plug sockets to plug in our video Dora movies
9 - Total lack of respect for travelling families in UK
It is unbelievable how bad it is in UK for a family on the publis transport with a pushchair !
Fortunately we get on the boat and straight away, LIKE MAGIC we have it so good !
1 - Loading ramps easy for the pushchair
2 - Massive fare reductions for kids
3 - In France the adults go for half if they have a kid !
4 - Plenty of pushchair space in Europe and on the Ship.
5 - Politeness!

Answer 1

You have to remember that the Railways in this country where built in Victorian / Edwardian times, firstly Disabelled and Family Friendly ideals did not exist, children where under strict control if they did move around. Even if you go forward to the 20's to 30's when Families did start to use the Rail Network for Holidays etc, again it was not until the children became close to teenagers that they travelled by train, if a parent turned up with a buggy etc then there where people known as PORTERS to help.
Moving onto now. It is Impossible to assist Parents with buggies, Disabelled persons etc onto and off trains, move them around the platforms and station.
Why?
Health and Safety and Litigation in a nut shell.
The rulings from ATOC, HSE, HMRI and the Transport Lobbies now all agree that an employee of the Rail Companies must not assist any person when carrying out any Safety Critical Work, must not touch, carry or take responsibility for any item or person with the Railway premises, why you may ask? Because there have been a few cases of people sueing the railway for damaged property, damage due to misuse of assisted travel or assistance, good intentions or not, staff have damaged themselves by assisting people with buggies, suitcases, etc, all over the place, therefore losing work time and during the 80's and 90's some companies where sued due to work related injuries caused by assistance to the needy.
Then there is the actual infrastructure itself, most stations do not have the capacity to assist travellers, the stations are unmanned, no ramps, lifts, platform size is not adequate or height of platform will cause a problem, yes Network Rail who are reponsible for the stations, in conjunction with the TOC's are looking at changing this, but on average the cost is astronomical, for instance at the Station I am mainly concerned with as an area Supervisor, the lifts have just been upgraded from a canterlever design to a new passenger freindly lift, cost 4 million pounds for 3 lifts, reason, the lift shafts had to be completley renewed, all wiring new lifts, etc. Customers can still not use them alone due to security restraints now in force, so I still have to release one of my staff from there normal duties to travel with that person, which will soon not be possible as we will be having extra services stop at the station which means more priority work for ourselves in Safety.
If you are travelling, then I would suggest you call the local TOC's passenger assistance line, there you can book the times you wish assistance 24hrs in advance, this will be passed to the station and every effort will then be made to assist you within the bounds of our control.
As for Politness and Friendly staff, well, again that is down to the individual TOC concerned, if unfortunatley you travel with a poor TOC that does not train its staff, or the staff are having an off day or you meet what is termed as a 'Dinosaur' on the Network (pre private staff) that have no interest in the Customer or Company then I am afraid its one of those life things, but you should take a customer feedback form and tell the company about any bad instances of travel or rude staff, then things would change for the better.
I know that in the main the staff that are within the area I work in the South East are changing attitudes, yes we still have problems, yes some of the staff can be a s grumpy and rude as anything, but unless there is a complaint or instance where they can be talked too, us supervisors and managers can not do anything about them except give them the generic training that the rest of the staff go through.
Finally just as a dig back, if you ever get to a station and you ask a member of staff to assist you, think about what is going on, are they being rude by pointing at someone else, ignoring you or asking you to wait, they may be doing something that you don't realise is important, checking something that has gone wrong that you don't know about or performing some other priority task that means they can not assist you at once. Most staff will either ask you to wait and they will be with you shortly, point you in the direction of someone who can assist, etc. So please be patient with us as well, we do have work to do.
Hope this helps explain and give you some ideas.

Answer 2

I would first make the point that all public places in the UK must allow access for the disabled, which will assist pushchairs. I suggest the asker did not look or ask. The Underground, I agree, would be difficult for a pushchair, but what does she suggest? Lifts? These are being removed (where practicable) in the few stations where they did exist as they cannot deal with the number of passengers in a reasonable time (ever tried using Covent Garden in the rush hour?) - but see this page:- http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/transportaccessibility/1169.aspx#platform

Buffet cars are available on most long distance trains - the suggestion that there are none implies that local trains only were being used. Again, most long-distance trains have plug sockets for portable DVD players, laptops etc. Again, the question suggests use of local trains only. And yet again, space for pushchairs. All long distance trains have storage space at one end of the carriage - same comment. Rude passengers? I wonder if the asker was travelling with kids and a pushchair on commuter services in the rush hour. Yes, fares are high, but if the asker was coming from abroad he/she could have brought a pass. Was this done? Anyway, our railways are highly subsidised by the taxpayer. Cheaper fares would mean even higher subsidies - and non-taxpayers would benefit. It has always been the case that children over 3 pay half fare - tough luck if you think that free fares should apply to kids up to 5 and older.

Answer 3

I thought you meant encouraging them to play on the electric lines, rather than fencing them out.

Why should everyone else suffer because some people are too pathetic to cope with their own screeching offspring?

I went on trains and buses as a kid, was expected to stand so that adults could sit, negotiated the steps and dodged the drunks and managed not to die.

Perhaps it's the fact that parents don't discipline their kids or teach them to be physically capable these days that's a problem. Mind you, if all the exercise the parents ever do is push in the queue at McDonald's and fight to get the last Wii at Xmas, is it any surprise their prgency cannot handle stepping on and off an escalator without hyperventilating?

Quit whining, or quit breeding.

Answer 4

excuse me????????????????????????????????
up to 2 children under the age of 5 may travel FREE OF CHARGE with each fare passanger but may not occupy a seat if it is required by a fare paying passanger
you are not well informed as many of the things you have said are not true.
first 95% of rail staff have very important jobs and will always help if they are required UNLESS the are dealing with safety critical work e.g.fire or life+death situations
for more uk rail info visit
www.nationalrail.co.uk

also you are implying you stayed in london and only used local commuter trains

Answer 5

I agree, it's a wind up. I've been on trains all over Europe, the US, and the Philippines and none of those countries are any better than the UK - in fact, some are far worse.

Answer 6

plug sockets for video Dora movies!!!!!!!!
i agree the fares are expensive and most staff do find you a problem except for a few. but i have found generally the public do help each other especially if you struggling.

Answer 7

if you had that many problems in the uk contact someone about it from the train company its not even that bad here because there is space for prams on buses

but as for the tube this one woman was on her phone when i was on holiday in london and she was swearing this is what i remember

i have a f***ing s**t day

that was while my brother who was 10 and my sister who 8 were there

Answer 8

Are you Dora the Explorer?

Answer 9

i strongly suspect a wind-up here. wtf's a video Dora movie?

Answer 10

I live in scotland and pretty much agree with you and it gets worse the further south you travel.