Calls for the government to declare a national emergency are growing over the rail crisis with concerns that stations are no longer safe and staff face growing abuse from furious passengers.
The Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) said ministers should urgently convene a meeting of the Cobra committee, saying that delays to Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) services are now the biggest rail breakdown outside war time.
The union said the latest new timetable introduced by GTR this week – the third since 20 May – is doing nothing to make services better or ease the misery of passengers and staff.
A survey of TSSA members at GTR showed that stations arent safe for staff anymore because of rising levels of passenger anger at delays and cancellations, said the union.
Nearly all of TSSAs GTR station staff have been abused by passengers as a result of frustrations over cancelled trains, it claimed.
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Most station staff said their jobs have become more troubling and their anxiety at work has risen since the new timetable changes came into effect.
Workers told of how passengers were being treated like animals and forced into trains that clearly do not have the capacity to take them because so many have been cancelled.
One worker said he saw passengers falling from an arriving train on to the platform when the doors opened, with some being trodden on, at Kings Lynn in Norfolk.
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One station host said he had to help a season ticket-holder who was suffering epileptic fits because of stress brought on by cancellations.
TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes said: The breakdown in services at GTR is nothing short of a national scandal, but it is also a national emergency. Passengers are stranded at stations and squashed into trains.
Overcrowding of carriages and platforms have escalated to seriously dangerous proportions for all concerned. Too many stations are no longer safe for passengers or staff and as workers cant make it to work so our economy is haemorrhaging money.
Meanwhile, the Department for Transport has no grip on the situation and, given people are failing to be transported on their public rail service, it is hard to see how the DfT is fit for purpose.
This weeks new timetable changes have made no difference to the trauma facing passengers nor the abuse they are meting out in their frustration to staff. Our members are being turned into scapegoats.
However, Govia Thameslink Railway has claimed its had a positive start to the introduction of the new interim Thameslink and Great Northern timetable this week.
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A statement said: The new schedules have delivered a more stable, resilient and reliable service.
Some 200 extra trains are now running each weekday across the network compared to the period prior to the introduction of the May timetable.
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Levels of punctuality and reliability are returning to levels achieved before the May timetable change.
GTR chief executive Patrick Verwer said: My priority is to ensure passengers have the punctual service they are promised, and the new interim timetable is starting to achieve that.
While the overall picture has improved, some infrastructure problems beyond our control have impacted services.
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