Like Tony Laycock (Letters, June 4), I have travelled on an off-peak, reduced, sliding-door train from Brighton to Victoria, standing all the way.
The train was so overcrowded the shock absorbers were bottoming on the bogies with a bang on the rails. I had trouble walking for months.
Brighton and Hove stations share the same problem: Only two tracks to Haywards Heath and no cross rail between Hove and Lewes on the overcrowded coast line between Southampton and Ashford International.
The new prefabricated sliding-door trains have no provision for bulky luggage, child's buggies, shopping (especially in rural areas), scooters, bicycles etc, except in a cramped wheelchair toilet compartment if not in use.
The other alternative is the often dangerously congested sliding-door vestibules.
Perhaps the Strategic Rail Authority, Rail Health and Safety Executive and multi-national train companies would make fewer mistakes if they moved their London offices to Brighton?
-John Stanaway, Hove
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