The Reading West MP Alok Sharma launched a petition last year calling for crowded trains between Reading and London to be declassified. Mr Sharma call on First Great Western (FGW) to declassify first class carriages on its trains, during the peak hour periods. Alok is also calling on the company to publish data on the number of times it declassifies trains on a daily basis.
“We the undersigned call on First Great Western to declassify First Class carriages on overcrowded trains between Reading and London Paddington and to publish data on how many trains are declassified each day.”
In a recent meeting of Mr Sharma with the First Great Western Managing Director Mark Hopwood he confirmed that the train operating company has already increased standard seats on local Reading services by 21% and is two thirds of the way through converting a First Class carriage into Standard Class on every High Speed Train serving Reading, meaning 2,000 of the extra 3,000 seats promised are already online.
FGW have recently removed first class compartments on some local commuter trains to create more space for standard class customers. and in addition our train managers are already empowered to declassify first class carriages on high speed trains as the need arises, this message has been re-enforced between Paddington and Reading to make sure this happens.
We want to see FGW to go further and see what more can be done to speed up the conversion to Standard Class seats, and on local stopping services, to consider removing First Class carriages entirely.
