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Councillor blasts 'disgraceful' rail station
A COUNCILLOR has hit out at what he dubbed "disgraceful" train station facilities after he was left stranded on a deserted platform.
Independent councillor Reuben Atkinson was left with no-one to turn to at Hartlepool Railway Station on Sunday after the Grand Central train service was rescheduled because of engineering work.
The 68-year-old, who was intending to travel to Sunderland's Stadium of Light for the match against Manchester City, was with two grandchildren, Katie Harrison, 12, and Joel Ellis, 16, and had to wait an hour-and-a-half for a train.
Although the reduced service had been advertised, the retired postal worker was dismayed to find there was no ticket office open to seek advice, no cafe open to get refreshments and the station toilets were also locked.
He said: "I had to wait until 2pm for the local train to take me to Sunderland from 12.30pm. I thought 'what are we going to do for an hour and a half?'
"There was no cafe open, no toilets, no ticket office and I thought this is a bit of a disgrace treating people like this."
Coun Atkinson, who lives on Hartlepool's Central Estate and has a daughter, Lynn Thompson, 40, said that while he was at the station a customer came in to buy a ticket for a future journey, but was unable to.
He said that after games there is a surge of fans trying to make their way back to Hartlepool and quite often only two carriages are put on.
He said: "Sometimes they put two carriages on anyway and you can't get a seat on the normal trains.
"Coming back, there was a train at 6.20pm and that was packed," he added.
Carolyn Watson, external communications manager for Northern Rail, said: "The station is not staffed on a Sunday.
"Unfortunately, when we don't have staff there, we find if the toilets are left open they attract people who might not use them for what they are there for, and we have suffered from cases of vandalism in the past, which is unfortunately why we have to keep them locked."
Miss Watson added: "We have been operating since December 2004 and we have seen a growth in passenger journeys of 34 per cent across the network. We do identify where we can to provide additional carriages when we know there will be extra demand, but unfortunately there's a shortage of spare carriages in the industry.
"We do what we can with the fleet of trains that we have got and we are working with the Department of Transport to introduce more trains into the fleet, but it's not a quick fix."
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Weather for Hartlepool
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: East
