Information 'vital for rail passengers'

Rail passengers are "crying out" for better information when they are delayed, a case history report by a train travel watchdog showed yesterday.

Instances of people stuck on freezing platforms with no information, and others getting conflicting news about trains featured in the experiences of 1,000 rail travellers gathered by Passenger Focus.

Asked in the survey to give details of their delays, the regular rail users spoke of unhelpful rail staff, a lack of apologies and information when things went wrong and staff not knowing what was going on.

Passenger Focus chief Anthony Smith said: "A key finding was that passengers who are kept informed when they are delayed walk away reasonably satisfied with how things were handled.

"But this does not happen every time. Bad winter weather will again put a strain on industry information systems… There is a clear message to operators and Network Rail that they need to up their game."