London's most crowded train

6:40am Thursday 28th August 2008

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Commuters cramming on to packed early morning trains at Surbiton station have had their suspicions confirmed - their trains are among the most congested in the London rush hour.

Figures released by the Department for Transport show the 8.02am Waterloo train which runs through Surbiton had 318 passengers over seating capacity crammed on to its eight carriages when measured last autumn - making it the most overcrowded train measured in the London commute.

Also making the top 10 was the 7.32am Waterloo sister service which, despite boasting four extra carriages, still had more than 300 additional passengers standing.

Commuter Darius Carne, who squeezes on to a Surbiton train every morning, said: “It’s massively overcrowded - it’s cattle class. There just aren’t enough carriages first thing in the morning.

“Not all of the trains are full length for the station so they could extend those, or run more trains more often.”

Platform kiosk vendor John Greig, who watches his customers crush on to trains at Surbiton every day, said he felt people had stopped complaining because they had become used to travelling in such dreadful conditions.

He said: “The 8am and 8.30am trains are always busy, but I don’t get any of my customers moaning about it.

“I think it’s probably a case of them being comfortably numb.”

A spokesman for South West Trains, which runs the busy Surbiton services, said the company had increased the 8.02am train to 12 carriages but admitted its hands were tied over adding more carriages because of the length of the stations involved.

She said: “The main thing to remember is we have a tremendous frequency of service, so if somebody felt they didn’t want to get on a particular train they could get on another one very soon afterwards.”

Kingston and Surbiton MP Edward Davey, who has campaigned for better transport links to the borough, said longer platforms at Waterloo were needed to kick off improvements further from the capital.

He said: “Surbiton station is not the problem - in the past 10 years it’s come on fantastically and it has the capacity.

“We need longer trains though and that means longer platforms, including at Waterloo.

“Once you’ve got that you can work down to the other stations such as Kingston and New Malden which can only handle shorter trains.”

A spokesman for Network Rail, which is responsible for the rail network’s infrastructure, said capacity issues in London and the southeast was a priority.

She said: “Work is also soon to start on the old Eurostar platforms to increase capacity at Waterloo.”

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