baby changing facilities on train

michelefauk

Hi
After travelling with my daughter and 6 month old grandson yesterday on a First Great Western Train, we noticed that there is nowhere to change baby! We ended up all having to squeeze into the tiny toilet cubicle and my daughter held the baby up in mid air while I sorted out his rear end, cleaned him and redressed him, not an easy task ! Also before getting back on the train to come home, we again wanted to change him but the ladies loo again had nowhere to change a baby so we had to change him on a bench in the waiting area, again not ideal and certainly not very nice for the other passengers.
Does anyone know is it not British Rail policy to provide any facilities?

Tigsteroonie

Er ... British Rail hasn't existed for a good number of years. :rotfl:

Your query/complaint is with First Great Western regarding the journey (the Train Operating Company - TOC); and with the owners of the station (most likely a TOC as Network Rail only own a very small number of stations).

Personally I'm surprised at the station not having facilities, they're usually located in the disabled toilet.

michelefauk

Thanks for the reply, I am going to get in touch with First Great Western and suggest they may think about providing baby changing facilities on trains in the future, it would certainly make things easier for parents.

Tilt

My guess is that you were travelling on an old Intercity 125 type train which are still in use with FGW. These have the standard 'BR' size toilet compartments on them and are due to be withdrawn because they also lack disabled facilities which, (under new European regs) have to be provided although i'm not sure when by. On all new trains both facilites should exist. The obvious reason that they have been slow in comming is that these facilities reduce seating capacity thus reducing revenue. All stations now MUST have disabled facilities which by default usually include baby changing.

johnnyroper

FGW also have no facilities on the west DMU fleet,the class 150,153 and 143 never had changing facilities but the class 158's used to have them in the disabled toilet in the 52 carriage but due to couples getting very friendly and damaging the mechanism they had to be removed for safety reasons.there was an incident where the weight of a baby on a damaged change table made it give way and baby ended up on the floor,thankfully it was not injured but as you can probably understand as inconvenient as it is the decision to remove them pending modification/remodelling was the correct one.

as for the HST fleet they do have a disabled toilet in 1 of the carriages not sure if there is any change facilities though.

OP where were you travelling from and to?

Please do write to FGW customer services and tell them about the problems you encountered and maybe it will jog some memories about getting them sorted.

(work for FGW so am aware of the issues)

robt_2

Tilt wrote: »

My guess is that you were travelling on an old Intercity 125 type train which are still in use with FGW. These have the standard 'BR' size toilet compartments on them and are due to be withdrawn because they also lack disabled facilities which, (under new European regs) have to be provided although i'm not sure when by.

It is 2019, but they do have (less than four year old) disabled toilets in Coach E. I don't know if there are also baby change facilities in there though.

On all new trains both facilites should exist. The obvious reason that they have been slow in comming is that these facilities reduce seating capacity thus reducing revenue. All stations now MUST have disabled facilities which by default usually include baby changing.

Sorry what? Maybe you have phrased that badly, but there is no such legislation. Stations do not need to provide facilities for ANY passengers, but if they do provide toilets, they must have disabled friendly toilets too.

Tilt

robt wrote: »

It is 2019, but they do have (less than four year old) disabled toilets in Coach E. I don't know if there are also baby change facilities in there though.

Sorry what? Maybe you have phrased that badly, but there is no such legislation. Stations do not need to provide facilities for ANY passengers, but if they do provide toilets, they must have disabled friendly toilets too.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/RightsAndObligations/DisabilityRights/DG_4001068

I think you will find it in here somewhere under the Equality Act 2010.

robt_2

Tilt wrote: »

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/RightsAndObligations/DisabilityRights/DG_4001068

I think you will find it in here somewhere under the Equality Act 2010.

I won't, because it does not exist.

It would only be in the equality act if provisions were made for able bodied people but not disabled people.

Tilt

robt wrote: »

I won't, because it does not exist.

It would only be in the equality act if provisions were made for able bodied people but not disabled people.

So stations do not have to have acsess facilities such as ramps, lifts ect for the disbaled then? Sorry, my mistake.

robt_2

Tilt wrote: »

So stations do not have to have acsess facilities such as ramps, lifts ect for the disbaled then? Sorry, my mistake.

The context was quite clearly about disabled toilets.

Access facilities have not been mentioned.

Tilt

My post (#4) quite clearly said; 'All stations now MUST have disabled facilities'. In your post (#6) you stated; 'Stations do not need to provide facilities for ANY passengers', which seemed to suggest you meant ANY facilities. I was merley pointing out that this is in fact incorrect. Perhaps we miss-understood each other.