Coronavirus: Social distancing on trains 'at risk'

A carriage belonging to London Northwestern Railway was targeted in Coventry

Train vandals are risking public health by undermining efforts to help passengers observe social distancing, a company warns.

West Midlands Trains carriages have been blighted by graffiti during lockdown, with the latest incident emerging on Tuesday.

It comes as longer trains are planned to help passengers keep apart.

But the company says it has to take daubed stock out of circulation for cleaning amid other safety concerns.

Leaving carriages with obscured windows in operation, it says, runs the risk of limiting the views of rail staff and emergency workers.

The company added that allowing graffiti to remain also encouraged other vandals to add their own spray-painted efforts, "which are often carried out when trespassing in dangerous environments".

Graffiti in Wolverhampton said "thank you NHS" - which a spokesman said was ironic due to safety risks

West Midlands Trains runs both West Midlands Railway (WMR) and London Northwestern Railway services, and it was graffiti on the latter's trains that was discovered on Tuesday in Coventry.

Each railway's trains has been targeted about five times between them since lockdown began during a period of reduced services.

West Midlands Trains says it is concerned over further incidents - and the need for cleaning operations - when more passengers return to railways amid the easing of lockdown restrictions.

WMR customer experience director Jonny Wiseman said: "With social distancing currently reducing the capacity of our trains, it is more important than ever that we have as many carriages as possible available for use.

"At a time when our cleaning teams are working extremely hard in challenging conditions, it is soul-destroying for them to face this pointless additional workload just to get carriages back on the tracks."

Graffiti in Wolverhampton said "thank you NHS", a company spokesman added, but he said "ironically it's causing problems for the NHS", because shorter trains "impacts on the ability of passengers" to keep apart.

WMR's tweaked timetable from Monday shows roughly a doubling of services compared to recent weeks.

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