'Bin first class' says Oliver Coppard after EMR announces reduced timetable
Oliver Coppard has urged East Midlands Railway to allow all train users to sit in first class carriages to combat overcrowding.
The rail operator introduced a reduced timetable between London and Sheffield at the start of the week, due to reliability issues with ageing trains and problems with a new fleet.
While train managers have the power to “declassify” first class carriages, allowing them to be used by passengers on any ticket, on a case-by-case basis, South Yorkshire’s Labour mayor has called on the operator to apply the exception to all trains, until cancelled services are reinstated.
Coppard, who was elected in 2024 on the promise to end “years of underinvestment and declining services”, has called the issue a matter of “common sense”.
He said: “If there are empty seats available in First Class, people should be able to use them.”
He added: “Because of the problems on EMR, too many people are facing cancelled trains, overcrowded carriages and longer journeys because of problems completely outside their control.
“At a time when too many passengers are being left standing, squeezed into carriages and crowded around doors and toilets, it simply makes sense for the whole of the trains capacity to be used as a matter of course.”
EMR has not provided a date for the reintroduction of the original timetable, saying it will “work with” Hitachi Rail, the manufacturer of the company’s new fleet of intercity trains, to solve reliability issues as soon as possible.