Maidenhead Station travel woes for wheelchair user

A disabled man in Maidenhead has decried the failings of the transport system while a lift at Maidenhead station is out of action.

From November 6 last year until now, ‘major improvement work’ has been taking place on platforms 2 and 3 – and the lift has been out of service.

Disability advocates then raised concerns about the impact this would likely have on people in need of step-free access to the station.

Now, eight months on, one of those who was concerned – Dean Yorke – has described the struggles he has had getting around.

In order to get out of the station at all, Great Western Railway (GWR) told people that they would have to get off at other stations with functioning lifts such as Twyford, Slough and Taplow and find other arrangements back to Maidenhead from there.

But this has not worked smoothly.

Dean has travelled from London to Reading and back to Maidenhead, and says the journey can take an extra 40-50 minutes.

“There's been no offer of free travel for that,” he said. “They [GWR] just think it's acceptable.”

Alleviation attempts have also been questionable, according to Dean.

“If you phone them up in enough time, they will arrange a taxi, but seemingly there's only one taxi driver under the contract for the whole area,” he said.

“He's picked me up from Slough, he's taken me to Reading, and they even suggested one night that he pick me up from Paddington, which just seems silly.

“They're providing an alternative but they're not getting that [it's] a 10-minute train journey, [while] at a busy time a taxi journey it's just more inconvenience.”

There are knock-on effects of the lift being out of action, too.

For people who need a ramp to get on and off trains, station staff from the starting station will call to make sure the destination station is aware in advance of this need.

But when Dean wanted to get off at Twyford, travelling from Slough, the station staff at Slough were unable to reach the staff at Twyford and said he would not be able to get off there.

Dean said he was later told that there had been no staff working at Twyford during the day.

“You would think there’d be a system where they should know that in advance rather than phoning, getting no answer and not knowing what’s going on,” said Dean.

Another time, Dean was told he could not go to Henley because there would be nobody to assist him in getting off the train there.

“This was 2pm on a weekday,” Dean said.

Passengers who need help were encouraged in November to ‘speak to a member of staff on the day’ or call Great Western Railway (GWR) Passenger Assistance, which provides pre-bookable journey assistance for disabled people.

However, this system, too, is imperfect.

“I don’t feel it makes a difference whether I book it or not,” said Dean. “I’ve been let down at Paddington before when I’ve booked it.”

Another problem is that it does not respond to real-time events, meaning that bookings are accepted without any guarantees that assistance will actually be available at the other end.

“Occasionally someone might call me and be aware what problems there might be,” said Dean.

“But nine times out of 10, it's confirmed within five minutes and that's it. The communication just seems terrible.”

Dean is concerned by the impact this will have on people.

“People have so much anxiety about travelling and things like this are just going to make people less likely to want to use public transport,” he said.

A spokesperson for GWR said: “We are really sorry for the inconvenience while this work takes place. The lifts had reached the end of their usable life so Network Rail are replacing them on the down platforms and at the same time installing a wider staircase to alleviate congestion at peak time.

"Unfortunately, customers with accessibility needs will need to travel to the nearest accessible station while the work takes place and we will arrange onward transport.”

Transreport, the company that runs the Passenger Assistance app, was contacted for comment.