Thank you for contacting us regarding services on Great Northern.
First of all, I am sorry to hear of your experiences with our services as of late. We appreciate that travel in such conditions (even if it’s technically undertaken voluntarily) can be unpleasant and uncomfortable, but I can at least reassure you Great Northern does try and plan services so that the appropriate number of carriages are available on each train. It’s important to note that increasing carriages on one train will mean removing them from another as we have a limited number of trains we operate. During the busy peak periods, we operate as many trains as the infrastructure will allow, with the longest formations that we can, but we only have a finite number of train carriages at present that we can use to provide services for passengers.
The capacity of the carriages has increased over the years to accommodate the increase in passenger demand. This has partly been achieved by installing narrower seats on busier trains and adapting the seating to provide more standing room. Unfortunately due to infrastructure limitations, we cannot increase the size of the train carriages themselves, and increasing the number of carriages is not possible on many of our train routes due to the length of the platforms at some of our stations.
In regards to your comments surrounding our First Class carriages, if you have a standard class ticket and the train is very full this doesn't give you the right to occupy first class, standing or sitting. This would only be the case if explicitly announced by either on-train or platform staff. In extreme circumstances should the service be declassified, you may use any part of first or standard with your standard class ticket, although please do note this can change throughout the course of your journey dependant on our ongoing assessment of the situation.
In reference to your comments with regards to announcements on our services, our drivers are regularly updated during disruption; however there may be times when information can seem conflicting, as the situation changes. When this happens our drivers will do their best to keep you informed, but because of the nature of the driver's role it's not always possible to relay these changes as quickly as we would like.
Lastly regards to your comments in relation to signage marking the First Class areas more clearly, I should note that on our Class 700 services First class carriages are on the front and rear coach, but on many of our services the rear coach is de-classified automatically to help alleviate crowding. Nonetheless, we are grateful for all feedback, positive or not, as all comments are recorded and the trends we note can and do help shape future policies and decisions. Indeed I would like to thank you for taking the time and trouble to bring this to our attention.
