Hi,
We're hopefully going to meet with some important people at GWR and LNER to discuss our experiences of travelling on trains with children.
Some of the suggestions we've had to improve the experience include the following:
1) Assisted boarding for those travelling with very young children.
2) Being able to book the exact seat (i.e. table/near toilet etc).
3) Dedicated pram space (that can be booked in advance)
4) Dedicated seats for mums breastfeeding
5) Level boarding
When you compare it to the European perspective, train travel with kids in the UK seems a bit lacking (see the picture below).
With best wishes,
JTTF
From my experience...
The under 5s “tickets” from transport for wales (ticket sized card with a picture of a train on) was a big hit with our kids, and made a surprising level of difference for such a simple idea
Level boarding would make a huge difference, particularly when travelling alone with kids
The activity packs on Virgin trains were brilliant, could get a good 1-2 hrs entertainment out of them
The old mark 3 coaches are/were really hard to board with a twin pram travelling on my own, or even with the best efforts of the guard. Wide door areas make a huge difference
quite often on busy trains we end up standing in the gangway between coaches. In that respect the class 170s are considerably more pleasant to travel on than a packed 390 as there’s more space.
