Northern Railway

Northern participate in a system called Passenger Assist which older and disabled customers can use to arrange assistance. This is an industry-wide system used to book assistance at stations for passengers during their journey. 

Passenger Assist allows you to:

• request assistance getting on or off the train
• request assistance entering or leaving the station
• request a portable ramp for getting on or off the train
• book seat reservations, including the booking of dedicated wheelchair spaces
• make onward travel reservations on services operated by other train companies where reservations are available
• request assistance to and from connecting services
• purchase tickets

Call 0800 1385560

 

Northern participate in a system called Passenger Assist which older and disabled customers can use to arrange assistance. This is an industry-wide system used to book assistance at stations for passengers during their journey. 

Passenger Assist allows you to:

• request assistance getting on or off the train
• request assistance entering or leaving the station
• request a portable ramp for getting on or off the train
• book seat reservations, including the booking of dedicated wheelchair spaces
• make onward travel reservations on services operated by other train companies where reservations are available
• request assistance to and from connecting services
• purchase tickets

 

Request Assistance

Passenger Assistance by Transreport is an app that has been created to facillitate booking using your mobile device, more details are available here.

You could save money on your train tickets by buying a railcard. If you are disabled, you may be eligible for 1/3 off rail fares (for you and a friend) with a Disabled Persons Railcard. If you are aged 60 or over may be eligible for 1/3 off rail fares with a Senior Railcard.

Many of our stations are staffed and all our trains have conductors. They are there to help so please don't hesitate to ask. We will ensure they are sufficiently resourced to meet the booked travel assistance requirements and help you on and off the train, using the on train ramp where it is required. 

We are working with rail industry colleagues and our customers to improve accessibility to our stations and trains. Our commitment is outlined in our leaflet Accessible travel policy

On some routes we continue to run class 153 single carriages, which will always be attached to PRM compliant rolling stock. The c153 carriages will allow a 2 car vehicle to run as a 3 car, but the extra carriage will not have designated wheelchair spaces or toilet available. These will be available elsewhere in the train and the conductor will be able to assist you when boarding the train, to ensure you have the facilities to travel comfortably.

 

 

Northern is committed to providing a rail network that is inclusive and as accessible as possible, giving everyone an equal opportunity to travel and enjoy all the north of England has to offer. We made great progress in upgrading our trains, introducing more almost 100 new trains and refurbishing more than 200 others. That means that the trains serving our customers across the north are more accessible than ever before. To make the best use of these improvements, and following a successful trial, were now able to offer our customers who use mobility scooters better access at more than 100 stations which are also accessible. For more information please see our Mobility Scooter webpage.

 

We are proud to recognise the Sunflower Lanyard. The Lanyard allows the wearer to discreetly indicate that they may have a non-visible disability that may mean they need a little extra support when travelling. Around one in ten of the UK population have a non-visible condition and surveys suggest that people with disabilities avoid using rail travel due to difficulties they have faced on their previous experiences. 1.3 million customers booked assistance for rail travel in 2019; this figure rises on average by 2% each year, and we want every customer to have a positive experience. If you require more information on the scheme, please contact our Customer Experience Centre on 0800 200 6060 and they will be happy to help.

We are committed to ensuring our website and app are accessible to everyone. This includes customers with vision, hearing, mobility, or cognitive impairments. We strive to improve our website by following the guidelines set out in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG).

Northern have created a priority seating card in partnership with Hidden Disabilities, the organization behind the Sunflower Lanyard scheme for customers who have visible and invisible disabilities to enable them to feel confident and empowered when asking other customers who are sitting in the priority seats on our trains to offer them a seat. There are priority seats in most of our carriages

The card has dual branding to make it easily recognisable as a disability aid and has space for you to personalise it on the back with any specific requirements you may want to make our staff aware of when travelling with us.

The cards are available free of charge through the Hidden Disability website by using a voucher code that is available from our customer experience team. Please click on this link and email the team stating your full name and address and you will be sent a code for a free card. We can provide one code per person.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the team at enquiries@northernrailway.co.uk or call on 0800 200 6060