JustBeingCP

As someone who uses a wheelchair to navigate everyday due to living with Cerebral Palsy and Hydrocephalus, it does not help when I am forced to make my own way from platforms at New Street railway station in Birmingham to the Assisted Travel Lounge especially when the station is very busy.

This happened to me recently at the station whilst travelling alone around the region to a place that I had never really been to before. I was not sure which platform my connecting train to Wolverhampton from Hereford (via New Street) was going from.

So I was told by the customer service assistant who helped me off the Hereford train on arrival in the second city to head up to the ATL (Assisted Travel Lounge) and ask them to get another member of the assistance team to help me board my connecting train to Wolverhampton.

However once I was inside the ALT the issues began, because they struggled to find a member of staff to assist me so I took the decision to find out what platform my train was going from, head there, and the get the senior conductor from West Midlands Railway to help me self board.

Once on the correct platform, I found the senior conductor and asked them to help me onto the train, which they did with no issue. However when I was waiting for the ramp to be brought off the train, the customer assistant from the passenger assistance team who was meant to be assisting me arrived on the platform.

By then it was already too late as I was virtually onboard the train by this point so it was hardly worth the staff from the station coming down to the platform.

My clear but simple message to the passenger assistance team at the station remains the same and is this, I do not trust the service that you are currently delivering as a team so will be self boarding services at the station with the support of senior conductors from West Midlands Railway (WMR), until I have assurances things are / have improved.

Previously I have said that this is a service which I couldn’t do without when traveling by rail around the Midlands and beyond, so it is time that you started doing better Birmingham New Street.

Do you enjoy reading my posts every week once they have been published then why not subscribe (if you haven’t already) and receive future ones direct to your inbox within just a few short minutes of publication.

Subscribe: https://just-being-cp.co.uk/

It is only right that I take this opportunity to thank the senior conductors at WMR who go above and beyond to ensure that I am able to board there services with ease across the network they manage, but especially at New Street.

Your support around this issue does not go unnoticed and is as always of course very much appreciated and always will be.

Finally, thank you to each and everyone for you my regular loyal readers and social media followers who continually take the time out of your busy schedules to read my latest posts, as always it is not go unnoticed and is very much appreciated.

Cam