davidgillon | Entries tagged with lner

I'd completely forgotten that right in the middle of the travel chaos that will be the five day Christmas travel window, Network Rail will be shutting down London Kings Cross for six days. That's never popular, but with all the added Covid chaos funnelling everyone who traveled up on the 23rd/24th to travel back home on the 27th (no services on the 26th), this year the complaints are going to be absolutely epic.

As far as I can tell, you're supposed to travel down to Peterborough, then switch to East Midlands Trains to go to St Pancras rather than KX, but those East Midlands Trains are already going to be full of the two days worth of people coming back from wherever they run from (just checked - Leicester, aka Covid central, Derby and Sheffield). Just reserving a seat is going to be a major problem. If anything goes wrong and services are delayed, forcing mandatory reservations to fall through, then Covid restrictions will mean they're going to look half empty to all the LNER passengers being told there's no room for them. In the immortal words of the Kaiser Chiefs (particularly appropriate for services from Leeds), "I Predict a Riot".

Chances of successfully booking a wheelchair space on both an LNER service trying to squeeze two days worth of people into one, and an EMR service already full of two days worth of Leicester and Sheffield types, are probably about zero, . Particularly as there are normally 12 services an hour into KX, but I think I'm right in saying EMR only run 5 into St Pancras, and those are smaller trains.

So glad I've already ruled out traveling!

And Boris has got his excuses in early by setting up, sorry, putting up Sir Peter Hendy, boss of Network Rail, as the Christmas Travel Tsar. So the buck will stop with the man who planned the Kings Cross shutdown, not with the man who then decided we'd all have to travel back during it.

I notice LNER are advising people to stay longer and travel back later - have they actually read the Covid regs?

Picked up my tickets for my trip North on Tuesday and realised that the Passenger Assistance booking I'd gotten by email was wrong when I compared the two.

I have a 1st Class Ticket (wouldn't normally buy one, but this time the difference was only £13 and I'll save most of that from the food and drink you get in 1st), but now I'd noticed it, the Passenger Assistance wheelchair space booking was for Standard - ticket and assistance were both booked on the same web form, but I'm pretty much convinced they then read the PA stuff off it and do it manually.

So I phone PA, convinced that by this close to Christmas the 1st Class wheelchair space will already be booked by someone else. Get through to someone and explain what's happened.

He is confused by the existing booking: "So, there's three of you travelling?"

Me: "No, just me."

Him: "But they've reserved three seats"

Me: {Sigh} "That's because you have to fold up the other two to use the wheelchair space." (Seats F99, F003, F004. Seriously, how can he not know that!)

Him: "Okay, give me a minute and I'll reserve the 1st Class Wheelchair Space"

Me, to myself : "You'll be lucky."

Amazingly enough he was: "All sorted. I'll send you through the email confirmation"

20 minutes later, confirmation arrives. It still lists the Standard class reservation.

I ring back, amazingly I get the same guy (not sure how many Passenger Assistance operators they have, but I could hear at least two more in the background).

Me: "It still says Standard Class"

Him: "I definitely changed it and reserved seat L99 for you." [and I know that's the 1st Class wheelchair space] "The system probably hasn't updated itself. I wrote it into the text. Here, I'll send it again."

New email arrives almost instantly. It won't let me in initially, but eventually does, I scroll down to the relevant section:

COACH:

F SEAT: F99

COACH:

F SEAT: F04

COACH:

F SEAT: F03

Seat reservations (shown only if made as part of Passenger Assist booking

MEETING POINT:

ASSISTANCE:

Assistance at station for boarding. Wheelchair user requiring ramps at origin station. Luggage assistance. OWN WCH, Seat L99 (KGX)
Assistance in transferring between trains, Assistance at station for alighting, Wheelchair user requiring ramps at destination station, Luggage assistance, OWN WCH, Seat L99 (DAR)

(My highlights)

So it's entirely possible I have both the 1st and Standard Class wheelchair spaces booked, plus my original non-wheelchair 1st Class seat (it's a great system, it allocates you a normal seat and prints it on the ticket before it allocates you the wheelchair space). I'm definitely going to be interested to see where I end up on Tuesday, and I'll definitely need a drink, whichever it is.

Why is everything so complicated when you're a wheelchair user?

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David Gillon

Entries tagged with lner

I Predict A Riot

Passenger Confusion

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February 2026

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