A CAMPAIGNING MP has heard the frustrations of furious rail passengers first hand.

Sir David Crausby spent Friday evening at Bromley Cross railway station speaking to commuters who continue to bemoan problems with vital services to and from Manchester.

Delays, overcrowding, and insufficient parking provisions have long provoked the ire of rail users at the busy station.

Northern Rail bosses have promised improvements and introduced more frequent trains in December, but the Bolton North East MP says some services remain ‘completely inadequate’.

Sir David said: “There is a continuing concern about the number of carriages at Bromley Cross.

“Only having two per train is completely inadequate. Ideally you would want four, but even three would make a huge difference.

“At the moment it is a complete nightmare in Bromley Cross and it can be even worse when you go one stop further down to Hall i’ th’ Wood.

“People stand on the platform and groan when they see a two-carriage train approaching.

“There are serious, serious problems and the consensus among the passengers I spoke to was that there is an obvious need for more carriages and for more parking.

“They were also concerned about increasing fares. People can accept paying a reasonable price for a train journey, but only if the journey itself is reasonable.

“It can’t be right that you are crammed in like cattle and asked to pay more and more for it.

“I have said for a long time that I will only believe the promises about improved services when I see them.

“We have a fantastic railway line and all it needs is a bit of money invested in more carriages to go on it.

“It is not rocket science, it’s just money.”

A spokesman for Northern Rail said: “Engineering work and sporadic reliability with trains has caused issues in and around Bolton during the past few months.

“We know we also have some older trains which are past their best and do not provide the customer experience we aim to provide. We have embarked on an ambitious modernisation programme that will not only see new or fully refurbished trains across our entire network by 2020, but will also see an increase in the number of services on some routes.

“By 2020 we will introduce an extra 2,000 services each week – that’s on top of the 2,500 we already operate each day.”