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Permalink Reply by George Perfect on May 7, 2013 at 13:06

OK - I'll start. I'd booked to attend NAIDEX months ago as my Motability vehicle is due for replacement early next year and I'm also on the lookout for some form of collapsible powered wheelchair (ie; a full powerchair in use that can be collapsed like a conventional self-propelled chair to stow in an ordinary car boot or hatchback) that will *finally* allow me to get back to one of my great passions in life - traveling the globe.

Other powerchair users will already be well aware that even if an airline gets your precious chair (on which you are totally dependent, don't forget) to the destination still working and in roughly the shape you checked in you still have all the problems of getting around once you're there.

If it helps anyone, the U.S. generally isn't too bad and wheelchair-adapted vehicles can generally be hired at most international airports (though at a cost). One or two other destinations aren't bad either. But for the world traveller who wants something more than shopping malls, swimming pools and beaches (nice though they can be sometimes ;>) ) your possible destinations are severely restricted unless your plans allow for well-in-advance-researched public transport and taxis.

Back to *my* wishlist. I like to head off the beaten track. I don't mean hiking the Himalayas (I didn't fancy that when I could walk) but I like the independence that comes from driving - getting to villages and countryside, discovering little off-the-beat restaurants - that sort of thing. Even getting across a city is nice. Anyone ever successfully negotiated the Paris Metro in a wheelchair for instance?

So ... if an airline can get me to a different country, I'd like to hire a standard car - same as anyone else. And for that, I need a powerchair that folds/collapses/comes apart to pack into the luggage bay. Of course it also has to be comfortable, have a full day's range, powerful enough to tackle ramps and obstacles ... etc., etc. (ask any powerchair user for their wishes - we're all the same!)

So, NAIDEX. Search for travel wheelchair, new WAV/conversion/whatever. Months ago, when I booked, I planned to travel there in my own adapted Ford Galaxy which, of course, suits me pretty well. Lo-o-o-o-ng story (which I may relate elsewhere someday) ... a young lady drove her Mini at speed into the back of my Galaxy while I was stationary in traffic on the A1 back in early March. The long story is the tale of how, over two months later, not only is the car not repaired and back with me but Motability, their insurers, agents and associated "helpers" haven't managed to find ANYTHING else that lets me out of the house.

So ... new opportunity beckons. Train travel. Looking at the National Rail website and various "train operating company" websites, travel by train for the wheelchair passenger is these days a bit of a breeze. In fact, it looks positively delightful. Stop laughing at the back there, willya? Anyway, I decide to give it a go. Here's the procedure I followed:

1. Using thetrainline.com I found the route (no changes needed as luck would have it) from my local station to Birmingham

2. I looked up the "train operating company" running this service using the Prominent (NOT) links on thetrainline.com website

3. I went to the "train operating company's" - in this case, Cross Country Trains - own website and drilled through the pages (go on, amuse yourself) to find the procedure for booking a wheelchair space. This directed me to National Rail's website ... where it explains that all in life is wonderful, they have swept away the old and replaced everything with a new procedure which provides one central point of contact for disabled passengers. Proceed with confidence, we disabled are urged. Merely book your complicated journeys with as many different train operating companies as you lie, all as normal and fill in the form to ask for assistance. OK - I'm no fool and I'm not sold on this spiel but I'm looking to do one journey on one train with one training operating company .. so back to the Cross Country Trains website I go.

4. Sure enough, there's a tick-box ... "Assistance required".

5. I tick it and proceed with my booking.

6. A new page appears, asking some adequate looking questions about my assistance needs. I fill it in and, for good measure write in the notes box that I am a POWERchair user who will stay in my chair for the journey.

7, Money changes hands (ie; they take money from my credit card)

8. An email arrives telling me to "Click here" to access my e-tickets. Why they can't just attach the e-tickets to the email beggars belief. But then I'm just a logical chap who spent too many decades at the sharp end of the IT industry. I click the link. A page appears that says "Click here for e-tickets". Sheesh! How many rabbit-holes do these people own? I eventually find the e-tickets, download them and print them out.

9. Curiously, the e-tickets show pre-assigned seats ... numbers C14 and 15 on the way out and D22 & 23 on the way back. Hmmm ... how am I supposed to get my powerchair into the middle of the carriage? Maybe this train has the sort of carriages with central doors? We'll see. Anyway, the first email promised another email would follow with a precise schedule of my assistance needs and what has been booked at each stage of my journey.

10. Hours pass. No follow-up email. I go to bed and sleep soundly.

11. The following day (hey, we'll skip any criticism of this new procedure doing away with the previous need for a disabled passenger to give at least 24 hours notice of intention to travel ... these days you just have to wait 24 hours for a response ... there's progress) an email arrives. It has an attachment (good job I have lots of software packages installed on my machine - it's in a different format to the e-ticket. Still, I guess it suits them). As promised, when printed out, it spews 4 pages of assistance bookings (all the same ... there's a song there somewhere) for each stage of my non-stop there-and-back journey. Along with strict instructions that I must arrive at least 20 minutes before scheduled departure at the specified "special assistance point" (aka "booking office" to any Victorians reading this) to be assisted to my seat (hey, I bring my own, isn't anyone awake here?)

12 [Drum roll, please] The day arrives. We set off by taxi for the station. Terry the taxi driver is as friendly, helpful and chatty as ever. We get to the "special assistance point" 40 minutes early ... to find a long queue snaking round the booking office while bored counter-staff leisurely take passengers' life histories, weight, inside leg measurements, dietary preferences and shoe size then giving each passenger what looks like an IQ test before handing over screeds of paper that are proudly announced as "HERE'S YOUR TICKET!!!". This is progress?

13. We search in vain for anyone or any sign of "special assistance" so Louise joins the queue. I can't join the queue because in order to cram the number of passengers trying to buy tickets into the booking hall they've put the post-and-rope thingies so close together I couldn't possibly squeeze my chair between them. Just to drive the "disabled not welcome here" message home, the exit of the queue is even narrower. By the time Louise reaches the front of of the queue and a bored counter clerk, it's now 20 minutes until the train is due to depart.

(Notes to self:

    (a) Big ooportunity for sale of alarm clocks to wake up rail ticketing staff,

    (b) Perhaps if they went back to .. I'd like a ticket to Newcastle - that's £50 please - [ticket stamping noise] - here's your ticket, bye .. the queues would be shorter, people less hassled and they could allow room for wheelchairs and pushchairs between the barriers?) Just a thought.

14. Louise is at the counter. The counter-clerk takes our printed "assistance schedule" and, without a word, leaves by a side door. Time passes. Eventually, he returns and tells Louise to "wait over there" ... pointing at me. She asks if someone will collect us or ....." and he repeats "wait over there!"

15. We wait.

16. We wait some more. The counter clerk manages to take some other poor soul's inside leg measurement, life history and issues what may be a ticket, may be a brochure for a far flung holiday or, may be an IQ score. I am uncertain.

17. He makes the mistake of catching my eye. He makes the bigger mistake of catching Louise's eye. An unspoken message is passed and understood. Silently, he stands, turns .. and leaves via a different door. A while later he realises he has walked into a cupboard. Time passes in which I assume he is hoping people will believe he had some purpose for walking into the cupboard. He exits left via the door he went through the first time.

18. We wait.

19. The counter-clerk returns. He sits and beckons another miserable, frustrated, hurried, harried, queue-person forward. To us he neither speaks nor passes a glance or unspoken message.

20. But, what's this? A short woman in an "I work for a train company" nylon gilet weighed down with badges, timetables and carrying a walkie-talkie into which she is alternately shouting and receiving squawked messages runs down the concourse toward the booking office. She enters. "Anyone here booked wheelchair boarding assistance?" she cries. Then she notices I am the only person in the room sitting in a wheelchair. She bounds over. "Are you waiting to travel to Birmingham?" she asks. We reply in the affirmative. She bounds off crying "Follow me, follow me ..." over her shoulder. Though I had believed Alice doesn't live here any more I become more and more convinced train companies have nevertheless invested heavily in rabbit holes. Sighing, we follow her.

21. We get to the ticket barriers (40 yards distant). Have no fear, the lady has radioed ahead to have the wide, wheelchair accessible gate opened for me. As we arrive it remains closed. Stricken, she calls on the radio to a colleague standing ten feet in front of her to open it quickly. She remembers to look at our tickets. "This isn't right!" she exclaims, "you've booked yourselves in seats C14 &C15 - you'll never get your wheelchair in there". She is looking at us with the look of a judge about to pass a death sentence on the miscreant who has dared to steal a loaf to feed his starving children. We start to explain that we hadn't booked - or even been give a choice of - any seats. The train company's booking computer had chosen the seats. We don't get far through this explanation at all because two things happen simultaneously:

    a) Our train arrives

    b) One of her colleagues points out that THE wheelchair accessible space on the train (that's right folks, this express service connecting SIX major cities has only ONE wheelchair accessible space on board. And the lady with the ticket that said she was entitled to it is already on the platform.

22. Walkie-talkie lady turns to Louise and says "Well, you'll have to take a later train - if there's space on one". Louise has already adopted her best head-mistress persona (the one I call "over your dead body!") and explains that will not be happening. Much squawking happens over walkie-talkies. The staff can't hear each other as they're standing beside each other with the walkie-talkie volume turned up so loud all they get is a howl of feedback each time one of them hits the talk button.

Notes to self:

    (i) Big business opportunity for staff training on the railways,

    (ii) Observe development of human race has reached the point where two people standing next to each other cannot converse without the aid of technology).

23. Louise separates the squawking, howling staff (by standing between them and performing a manouevre a ballet tutor would be proud to see) and suggests there must be another solution. Perhaps there is another wheelchair space on the train? "Well there is a space in first class - but you have standard class tickets" says walkie-talkie lady. I tell her train companies have a legal obligation to upgrade disabled passengers if they cannot otherwise meet their needs (thank you, National Rail website and Equalities Act). At which she turns to find and talk with the "train manager" (aka "ticket collector" for our Victorian readers).

24. Luckily, a wheelchair space is available in first class. But there's only one ramp. On the entire station platform. A main line station. It is currently in use to assist the lady who managed to book the one standard class wheelchair space.

22. We wait.

23. The train is delayed.

24. A young lady (another walkie-talkie person) runs, puffing the length of the platform (because disabled people are supposed to travel at the back of the train .. only if you pay the extra £170 asked for first class do you get to sit near the front). Still, one ramp = long run for somebody.

25. The ramp arrives and is fitted to the train. It is so short (presumably to allow young walkie-talkie people to run along the platform while still bearing the weight) that it now presents about a 35-40 degree ramp angle. Way beyond the maximum climb capability of any standard powerchair I know of. The door it's connected to is just a little wider than the chair - not much, a little. Someone tries to push my chair toward the ramp. It doesn't move. Because when stationary, powerchair brakes lock solid. That and the fact that combined, my chair and I weigh almost a quarter of a metric tonne. I tell the person I would be awfully grateful if they would stop punching me in the spine in their efforts to make my chair move.

26. Time to thread the needle. I swing my chair round to gain some run-up room, turn the speed to full, take careful aim ... and head for the ramp. Luckily I make it through the door and the train doesn't gain an extra entrance. Stopping once inside the carriage is something else - I used to pull almost as much G-force braking from 150MPH into the chicane at Donington Park in my race car but my worn-out body isn't up to such violent manouevres any longer. And my wheelchair isn't fitted with a 5-point race harness.

27. Next problem. How do you turn a wheelchair in a space barely wider than the chair and where reversing may see you fall several feet to the platform? Story for another day and another article I think I'll call "DOES ANYBODY EVER TEST THESE THINGS?" (Answer: NO).

28. The trendy designer of this trendy modern carriage must have been a Salvador Dali fan. The route from the carriage entrance to the seating cabin is (a) barely wider than a wheelchair and (b) is curved. We've barely left home and I've got to take my driving test again! Examiner: "Now, I want you to drive a 5 metre, 15 degree constant radius without colliding with the walls, damaging the elegant decor or your wheelchair and without removing any person's shins - including your own". How someone in a self-propelled chair would manage this without removing all the skin from their knuckles, I have no idea. I suspect they can't. Somebody has to "assist" them. Independent travel nil - Uncaring population 1 (again).

29. The cabin. Picture the scene if you will. People have just boarded. They are moving around the carriage trying to find space for luggage, find their seats, find a better carriage or just doing what people do to get in the way of each other. Into the picture, enter me. The wheelchair space is just longer than my chair. JUST longer than my chair. Wheelchairs do not move sideways. The carriage designer patently obviously believes they do. THEY DON'T DESIGNER-PEOPLE ... THEY DON'T! (see point 27, above)

30. To try and get out of people's way, I drive at the best angle I can manage in the tight space (about 40 degrees). Our designer friend has another little surprise in store. There is a solid, sharp metal bar hanging underneath the table. My knees hit it hard. OUCH! (see point 27, above)

31. The train departs, people start to settle. I perform a 90-point turn that impresses even me and manage to almost get square on to the laughable apology for a table provided in the wheelchair space. My knees are only slightly remodelled in the process - they were looking a bit wasted anyway, I'm sure I'll get used to the puffy blue/brown appearance they now present.

32. Aha! Clever, forward-thinking train company. Menus on each table in the first class carriage promise a "free" lunch ("Free" as in - if you're sitting here, you should have already paid an extra £100 for this piece of dried chicken). However ... despite it being lunch time (in many time zones as we trundle along) NO LUNCH IS SERVED. And nobody explains why. But, the clever, forward thinking bit is that they've saved me having to try and balance a plate on the laughable tiny table in front of me. Nice one, Cross Country Trains Ltd. I like your style.

33. Why, oh why did I accept that second plastic beaker of "free" orange juice? I'm only part way to Birmingham and I need to visit the little boy's room. I won't bother you with the manoeuvrings that were necessary to get back through the slidy doors that tried to close on me every 5 seconds, the renegotiation of the curved corridor or the all-but impossible turning in the carriage lobby. The curvy "DISABLED" (they printed the sign in BIG, SHOUTY LETTERS, not me) toilet is wheelchair inaccessible. There - I've said it. The disabled toilet is not fit for disabled passengers. Having reversed my wheelchair into the toilet space (only by Louise stretching over and repeatedly hitting the "door open" button every few seconds) in order to let the door close, I took the hint it was giving me after the umpteenth time it tried to break my leg hangers (and slice off my feet!) as it insisted in auto-closing (presumably to preserve my dignity in case I found myself embarrassed) and quickly removed the leg hangers myself and pulled my feet in just before the door tried to remove them for me once more. (see point 27, above)

34. I made it back to my "wheelchair accessible space". I won't say how - you've all got the picture by now. Eventually we arrive at Birmingham New Street station. On a train due to depart onwards to Bristol. Hmm ... now where is a person to ask about getting off this thing? Eventually, Louise hangs out of the carriage door (to prevent anyone closing it and the train shooting off) while I negotiate the slidy door, bendy corridor and execute a couple of 90-point turns to face out of the carriage door. Someone runs up with a ramp (guess what? they have only one on each platform) and attaches it to the train. She is accompanied by a railway "official" (he's wearing a uniform so he must be official) who repeatedly shouts at me to "GET BACK IN THE CARRIAGE" and "LEFT A BIT, RIGHT A BIT" as I eventually negotiate the narrow, steep ramp. Sheesh - calm down! I'm a living example of what high blood pressure can do to you.

Boy was I glad to get off!

The good bits. The train assistance staff at Birmingham New Street were friendly, helpful and efficient - even if they could have handled the boarding a lot better when we caught the return train.

Er ... that's it for good bits. This has already gone on long enough (too long! I hear you all cry) so I won't relate our return journey other than to say it was WORSE. Boarding was akin to attending a badly behaved chimps tea party - it was a zoo of people, some trying to climb over my chair in their rush to claim a seat on the busy, but far from full train.Others, meanwhile, had left their luggage in the wheelchair space - to be fair, the luggage racks were overflowing - which is why other had left cases and back-packs all over the floor, in the doorway and aisles where I needed to manouevre.

I've attached a picture showing how little space remained behind my wheelchair when sitting in the standard class wheelchair space. Having seen how little room they allowed in first class, I thought they couldn't make it any smaller. I was wrong.

Once again designer people - WHEELCHAIRS DON'T MOVE SIDEWAYS!

Others must have other stories of their journey to Damascus Birmingham. Come on ... SHARE!  :)

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