Manchester student collapsed three times on overcrowded Northern train

A University of Manchester student collapsed three times while travelling on a severely overcrowded Northern Rail service.

Travelling into Manchester to attend university, 20-year-old Issy Austin fainted multiple times after she overheated on board, BBC reports.

Issy boarded the 07:52 service from Glossop to Manchester Piccadilly on November 5th, but explained that the carriage was carrying an “insane amount of people.”

Unaware that the he previous service had been cancelled that morning, Issy was unaware of the build up of passengers.

She explained that the number of passengers “squeezed into my train was absolutely abysmal”.

“Towards the end of my journey, I collapsed and I didn’t collapse once, it was three times, and I was in and out of consciousness.”

Not long after she collapsed, a unnamed male passenger on the same service also lost consciousness. 

Police and ambulance services escorted Issy off the train, and said they too believed the incident to be most likely as a result of overcrowding. Following this, she was left with bruising and claimed to have felt unwell for the rest of the week.

Although Issy has no other option to travel to her university lectures, she explained that the experience has now left her afraid to use the rail service.

In order to avoid a similar incident in future, Issy is now walking to a different station in order to board the train from an earlier stop. She said: “I came to the conclusion that I would get onto the train at Hadfield so at least I am at the first stop, which means I should be able to get a seat and not risk fainting again.”

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The Labour MP for High Peak, Jon Pearce, suggested a reduction in service frequency may have had an impact on customer conditions aboard local trains.

Jon said: “In Glossop we used to have three trains an hour, that’s gone down to two.

“When you then start cancelling intermittently every other train it stops people getting to work, university and college on time. It’s having a massive impact on people’s lives and I’m hearing stories of people losing jobs.

“We treat cattle better when we transport them. It’s pretty shocking and it can’t carry on, we need a reliable train service.”

In reply to a complaint from Issy to Northern about her experience, a company representative explained that they take customer safety very seriously, adding that this feedback has been noted.

Acknowledging how services could get very busy and lead to “uncomfortable overcrowding for our customers”, they explained how all available rolling stock was in use network-wide, making it challenging to add extra carriages or run more services.

“However, I understand that the conditions onboard caused significant distress to the point of medical issues, and this is simply not acceptable,” they said.

“Even though a service may become busy at times, passenger safety is paramount.”

They added that the Department for Transport monitored crowding levels at key stations and on the 10 most crowded train services, and encouraged train operators to plan their timetable to accommodate passengers in peak periods.

They concluded: “Rest assured, [this] feedback has been noted and will be shared to address concerns and allocate additional resources where needed.”

Featured image via Unsplash