An exhibition that will travel the country to celebrate the “past, present and future” of the railways will be inaccessible to many disabled people who use mobility scooters, because Network Rail has used carriages that are more than 30 years old.
The Railway 200 project will celebrate 200 years since the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway on 27 September 1825.
As part of Railway 200, an exhibition train will tour the country, with its carriages displaying innovations in railway history, offering hands-on activities to explore the science and engineering behind railways, and encouraging those interested in a career in rail.
But many disabled people will not be able to access the exhibition because Network Rail and its project partner the National Railway Museum are using ancient rail carriages that were built years before the implementation of the first Disability Discrimination Act, which became law in 1995.
Users of standard mobility scooters will not be able to visit the Inspiration exhibition train, with its website admitting – in its “answers to questions” section – that although it is wheelchair-accessible, it is “not designed for mobility scooters”.
Instead, many scooter-users will have to content themselves with a “virtual visitor experience”.
Among the destinations the train will be visiting this summer will be Severn Valley Railway, Birmingham Moor Street station, Euston and Waterloo stations in London, Bluebell Railway in Sussex, Lowestoft station, the National Railway Museum, and Locomotion museum, near Darlington.
Tony Jennings, co-chair of a rail accessibility panel and co-founder of the Campaign for Level Boarding, who highlighted the failure this week and had been planning to visit the exhibition, said Network Rail’s discrimination “did not come as a surprise” as “all too often they appear to be normalising excluding disabled people within their organisation”.
He said: “It is symbolic that with the Railway200 exhibition, which purports to celebrate the past as well as a future modern railway, inclusive design is an unacceptable afterthought.
“Ironically, it is a sad reflection of today’s railway, where the government has not made commitments, or indeed a plan, to deliver rolling programmes for level boarding or step free stations, which at the current rate will take 100 years.”
He said the current situation for mobility scooter-users on the railway was “a diabolical mess”, with scooter-users “unreasonably expected to know every train operators’ Accessible Travel Policy, and whether they require a separate scooter permit for individual operators”.
Jennings, whose campaigning has led to both Northern Trains and ScotRail lifting their mobility scooter bans, said the variety of rules leaves scooter-users “at risk of being stranded” when taking a journey that uses more than one train operating company.
He added: “Mobility scooters are a mobility aid, yet unbelievably there are still operators which require mobility scooter-users to fold up and stow their scooter as luggage.”
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “The exhibition train has been procured and designed to be as safe and accessible as possible, to as many people as possible.
“During the procurement process, no carriages compatible with mobility scooters were available.
“The four carriages being used are modified Mark 3 coaches, originally designed and constructed before current accessibility regulations were introduced.
“They were the only suitable rolling stock available at the time that met the operational, heritage and touring requirements for the train’s 12-month tour of Britain.
“Every effort has been made to improve accessibility within the constraints of the original design, including a modification to the vestibule entrance to one of the carriages to allow wheelchair entry in every carriage.
“Specifically, the internal layout and door widths of the Mark 3 carriages, even after modification, do not provide sufficient space safely to accommodate standard mobility scooters.
“Visitors in wheelchairs can board, with staff assistance and via ramps, and can turn around within the exhibition space.
“However, the size, turning radius and weight of mobility scooters exceed what the carriage interiors and entryways can safely manage.”
The spokesperson added: “The National Accessibility Advisory Group, which includes members who use both wheelchairs and mobility scooters, was consulted during development.
“Its helpful insights, gleaned from across the transport sector, were instrumental in shaping mitigations, including the planned virtual visitor experience to ensure broader inclusion.”
Despite the Network Rail statement, and its admission that the exhibition is not accessible to scooter-users, a National Railway Museum spokesperson said: “The National Railway Museum is fully committed to being open and accessible to everybody, including mobility scooter users.
“Inspiration’s carriages were designed to be fully accessible by wheelchair users, and wheelchairs will be available for the public to use during the train’s stay at the museum.”
Flick Williams, a disability rights campaigner and retired disability equality trainer and access consultant, told Disability News Service: “I just think it’s shocking. Network Rail never seem to learn.
“We know they can’t get transport right, but even with the visitor experience they don’t seem to want to make any effort.
“It shows that we are absolutely not headed in the right direction at all.
“I just wonder what it will take to change the culture within Network Rail.”
She added: “It’s no surprise to me that knowing what an awful culture there is within Network Rail towards accessibility, they just don’t treat it as a civil right, as a human right.
“My fear is, with the advance of new technologies like virtual reality, they are going to use that as a ‘fob off’ to tell people, ‘we can’t give you access, but put this headset on and you can have a virtual tour.’
“It’s absolutely not the same at all.
“It just worries me that this new technology is going to be used to exclude disabled people in all sorts of ways.”
Picture: One of the Inspiration carriages being renovated for the exhibition, and Tony Jennings boarding a Merseyrail train that has level boarding
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