As a disabled rail passenger I use the passenger assistance service offered by rail operators and Network Rail on a regular basis.
In the last few days I’ve been asked on a couple of occasions to complete a feedback survey by Network Rail about the passenger assistance service offered by them at New Street station in Birmingham.
I will not be completing the survey after the passenger assistance team at the station used the wrong ramp when assisting me onto a train to Hereford in May last year.
Despite being reassured by Network Rail that there staff delivering the service are adequately trained to use all ramps I don’t have confidence in them.
When interviewed by a journalist from ITV News Central in the days after the incident I told them that, “ it’s scary because I didn’t know what that ramp was going to do”.
“ I wasn’t sure if it was going to like move with me on it or collapse”
“ It makes me nervous about travelling through the likes of Birmingham New Street again because I’m now thinking  is this going to happen to me again in the future”.
If the staff had been trained in the correct way to use the ramps then I believe they would have not used the wrong one when assisting me onto the train that evening.
Disabled rail passengers like me don’t just use the passenger assistance service for the fun of it, I need it to keep some of my independence.
Having independence is a massive part of my life and will be for the rest of it, and that means relying on others when completely tasks like boarding trains.
Network Rail, I need you to help me have some independence when travelling around the nation, please don’t continue to fail me during my hour of need.
There is no point in me telling you the ways that your assisted travel can be booked at this point.
However I would like to remind people that if something happens during your assisted travel experience that’s not right “ call it out so that it’s not allowed to happen again with other passengers who use the service”.
A decent passenger assistance service is something that I should be getting every time that I travel by rail, but that’s not always the case unfortunately.
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Cam
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