Improving trains for babies and children

Steven Burkeman

Safe baby seats that locked into place could be made available to parents on Intercity services. The seats would not need to be stored on the trains - just as a wheelchair-bound passenger gives advance notice to British Rail who then arrange for a wheelchair to be available and for the passenger to be escorted to an appropriate place on the train, so the same principle could apply to the use of baby seats. The seat could be made theft-proof by locking it into place for later unlocking by the guard.

Steven Burkeman, 8 Whitby Avenue, York YO3 OET (tel 0904 425499 h; 0904 627810 w). Ed: An irrelevant aside: there is a debate in the States as to whether baby seats on planes should be made compulsory - with fears that if they are, parents will avoid planes for statistically riskier forms of transport, in order not to have to pay for the plane seat that the new baby seat will occupy. The end result would be that more babies would be injured or die.

Children's carriages on the trains

Nicholas Albery

Some of the intercity trains in Switzerland have children's carriages sponsored by companies. In the children's compartment, there are table tops with game boards on them, lots of baby bottles in evidence, and a separate partitioned play area for older children, with benches and telephones with recorded stories, and a safe rocking horse and lego table.

'A separate partitioned play area for children on trains'

Nicholas Albery, 20 Heber Road, London NW2 6AA (tel 081 208 2853; fax 081 452 6434).

Comment by British Rail

Adapted extract from response by T.J. Anning, Intercity National Retail Manager

We are seeking to be innovative in our dealings with our equipment but this must be tempered with the need to remain profitable in the future.

We examined the question of children's carriages some three years ago and went as far as to design a play area such as you describe. Whilst this would be a very useful and good aspiration, it has to be held up against commercial considerations.

T.J. Anning, Intercity, British Railways Board, Euston House, 24 Eversholt Street, London NW1 1DZ (tel 071 928 5151; fax 071 922 4163).

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