AN Alton commuter train has been named among the top 10 overcrowded services in England and Wales.

The 7.14am service from Alton to London Waterloo, which passes through Farnham at 7.26am, was ranked as the 10th most overcrowded train in the country by the Department for Transport (DfT).

According to DfT statistics compiled in spring 2015 the South West Trains (SWT) service was on average 440 passengers in excess of its capacity of 738 by the time it reached Waterloo.

This puts it up there with other packed services including the 7.32am from Woking to Waterloo, the 7.51am from Heathrow to London Paddington and the country’s most overcrowded train, the 7am from Brighton to Bedford.

Figures released by the Office of Rail and Road last month showed late services and crammed carriages were the cause of nearly half the complaints made about SWT over the last year.

However, as the 7.14am Alton to Waterloo service already comprises the maximum 12 cars permitted on the South West Trains network, there are limited options to ease congestion on the service – a point acknowledged this week by the Alton Line Users Association (ALUA).

ALUA chairman David Jones told the Herald: “The 7.14am is already 12 cars long and you can’t get any bigger than that so there’s not a lot SWT can do. But commuters could help ease overcrowding themselves by spreading out down the train.

“It’s natural that everyone wants to sit near the front so they can jump out at Waterloo and go straight through the barriers. But if they took just a couple of extra minutes to walk down the train it would ease overcrowding and reduce delays.”

Mr Jones added that ALUA has not received any complaints from its members about overcrowding on the 7.14am service and thinks the problems highlighted by the DfT occur further down the line, after commuters join at Woking and Clapham Junction.

He continued: “Our biggest complaints are about this damned signalling problem at Bentley which they can’t seem to solve. Every fortnight or three weeks there seems to be problems there and commuters in Bentley and Alton are getting very fed up.”

Responding to the DfT figures, a South West Trains spokesperson said: “We operate one of the busiest railways in Europe and provide half a million journeys every day, bringing over 100,000 passengers into Waterloo every morning, with a train arriving or leaving the station nearly every minute.

“The most recent National Rail Passenger Survey shows 81 per cent of passengers are satisfied with South West Trains services, this is higher than neighbouring lines serving London and the South East. The average performance and punctuality of our services is also higher.

“However, we know some of our trains, particularly those during the busiest times of the day, are still extremely busy. We are investing and working hard to provide more space for more passengers and recently completed the £65million introduction of 108 additional and refurbished carriages, providing longer trains for many of our busiest services.

“We are now working with Network Rail and the Department for Transport to invest a further £800 million to make further improvements, and by 2019 we will be providing an extra 30 per cent space for our passengers during the busiest times of the day."

As reported by the Herald in July, the train operator’s £65m investment included improvements to the 7.39am service from Farnham to Waterloo and the 8.44am service from Alton, as well as the 5.05pm from Waterloo to Farnham and the 6.25pm from the capital to Alton.

SWT is also nearing completion on improvements to the Farnham Station car park, adding a single-deck to provide an additional 170 spaces.

A spokesman for the train operator added: “In terms of the car park works at Farnham, foundations are now in place and steelworks are being installed. We are still on track to complete on time in August.”

It was originally intended SWT would continue to operate services across much of the south of England until 2019, when its contract expires in February 2017, but last July the DfT announced it intended to re-let the franchise through a competition.

The Invitation to Tender for the South Western franchise set out what the Government expects from bidders, including at least 95 additional services on weekdays from December 2018 and an increase of at least 20 per cent in peak time capacity from December 2020.