Travel

Rail Travel

Rail Travel as a disabled Person can be easy with a lot of planning ahead, booking assistance and reliance on staff at stations and on the trains to respect a person who has any type of disability.

Sometimes things go wrong. Ramps not arriving in time to get a wheelchair user on or off the train. These issues are often raised in the media. It could be a platform change has had to happen at the last moment and staff who are allocated to assist a person off or on to a train are at the wrong platform. Communication issues which result in unhappy passengers.

Sometimes staff stop passengers in wheelchairs to check they have booked assistance to ensure they will have the help they need. Unfortunately they may not think about where a wheelchair user is before doing so. Never stop a wheelchair user on a steep ramp. The result – broken brakes on the manual wheelchair. Been boarded on a train, left in the wheelchair with no brakes and the wheelchair not secured. This is a NEVER event. An event that should never happen.

Education of staff is essential to keep passengers with disabilities safe.