ALL aboard — if you can! Crowded trains are nothing new to passengers using the Transport for Wales train service between Aberystwyth and points north and east. But when TfW staff throw their hands up at too many people using a train that’s just too small, you know things are bad.

That’s exactly what happened when passengers sought to take the 12:06 service from Birmingham to Aberystwyth on Friday, 1 July.

Ironically, the overcrowding and chaotic scenes came as TfW officials had just unveiled their shiny new trains that will introduced across Wales.

But don’t hold your breath — that £800 million worth of new trains will be going to service lines in South and North Wales, then the Borders, before they will hit rail tracks in mid Wales. In two years, if we’re lucky.

“Last Friday’s 12.06 from Birmingham International saw massively overcrowded, standing room only from Birmingham New Street to Shrewsbury,” one passenger told Cambrian News. “There was no possible access to the single toilet; plus no refreshments trolley all the way to Aber and no air conditioning.

“For good measure there were also no Welsh language announcements — or in-carriage electronic displays— and all Gwynedd bound passengers were turfed out at Machynlleth.”

When the two-carriage train did arrive in Aberystwyth, passengers waiting to board immediately filled the train — with little hope for others down the line.

There is no facility to reserve seats in advance, the passenger told Cambrian News.

One TfW staff member, frustrated at the overcrowded and poor level of services, told passengers: “Please complain. They would not allow cattle to travel like this.”

But that’s easier said than done.

Cambrian News left four telephone messages with TfW’s head of media public relations. It also sent three emails asking for comments on the service to the region.

None of the messages were answered.