A MAN who was on board a “packed” train on Saturday (June 29) said some passengers had to be “left on the platform” when it stopped at Prestatyn.
Iwan Williams boarded the Transport for Wales-operated service at Bangor, heading to Cardiff, at 11.02am.
While, according to www.ontimetrains.co.uk, the longest delay at any of the platforms it stopped at was six minutes, Iwan said the two-carriage train was so busy that “they couldn’t physically fit anyone else on”.
Transport for Wales acknowledged and apologised for the inconvenience caused on the service on Saturday, which coincided with an event at Chester Racecourse.
Iwan said: “The train was full from Bangor, but there was still some room to stand up at first.
“But by the time we picked passengers up from Rhyl, it was packed; the whole carriage was full from one side to the other.
“Some people managed to get on in Prestatyn, but they had to leave a bunch of people on the platform as they couldn’t physically fit anyone else on the train.
“The best way to describe it was being on the Underground in rush-hour for a straight hour.
“I thought it was pretty poor planning, considering it was Chester Races and they only had two carriages.”
In response, a spokesperson for Transport for Wales said: "We've worked to add as much capacity as possible to services arriving into Chester for the races, with a focus on the key services arriving before the start of the event.
"Unfortunately, it's not possible to add capacity to all services because of the number of events taking place across Wales at weekends during the summer months.
"We'd like to apologise to customers who experienced busy services.
“As more of our brand-new trains come into service over the next 18 months, we will be able to add more capacity at peak times across the Wales and Borders network."
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