Rail overcrowding pledge 'broken'

Metro said Northern Rail had had no new carriages in the past five years

A transport chief has accused the government of going back on a promise to provide extra train carriages to cut overcrowding across Yorkshire.

Metro, West Yorkshire's passenger transport authority, said the Northern Rail Franchise had been promised 182 new carriages in 2007.

But Metro chairman Ryk Downes claims the Department for Transport (DfT) plans to almost halve that figure.

The DfT said it was working with Northern Rail to find a solution.

Northern Rail runs services across the north and north east of England, including all four Yorkshire counties.

Mr Downes accused the DfT of "short changing" those areas.

'No room'

He said: "The number of additional that the DfT is proposing for the whole of the Northern franchise would barely meet the 60-90 carriages it identified in 2007 for the Leeds area alone.

"Since 1995 there has been a 70% growth in the number of rail journeys made to, from and within West Yorkshire and that number is continuing to grow, yet Northern Rail has had no new carriages in the last five years."

Mr Downes told BBC News: "The consequences are that many people will choose not to use public transport and go back to cars and polluting the atmosphere and congesting our city centres, which is exactly the opposite of what the government are asking us to achieve.

"We can't possibly be promoting trains at the moment when they are over capacity. There's no room for new people to come on."

A DfT spokesman said: "We are working with Northern Rail to find a solution to increase capacity which will be affordable, and give value for money, and we shall be making an announcement in due course."