I, AND my partner, usually separately, regularly have to travel in the evening back to Thirsk from Newcastle, which inevitably involves a change of Trans Pennine Express (TPE) trains at Northallerton.

The interval between trains there is usually about eight minutes, and it is not rare for the southbound train to run late, so that the connection is missed.

My concern is that when this happens, the reaction of TPE is unpredictable and contradictory.

At the best, the train manager on the late train will arrange for a taxi to be waiting on arrival at Northallerton; another has said that the booking office staff will sort one out (fantastic, but since the staff close up and vanish at 8pm) quite useless.

Once I was told that “all TPE stations close at 2100”. Nonsense!

If, as is not infrequent, the onboard staff do not emerge from the safety of their cabs at any time during the journey, recourse has to be had to the help-point on the station platforms.

The worst experience, most recently, was that the train manager told my partner (who is a female pensioner) that TPE could not arrange a taxi, since “there was another later service to Thirsk”, which there indeed was, but not until a full hour later!

He then gave her a form with a box ticked so that she could reclaim the taxi fare from TPE! Consistent, or what?

All well and good, but after 9pm on a February night, with the booking office closed, and as far as I am aware no public telephone within reach of the station, how might anyone, possibly without a mobile phone, or the number of local taxi firms, on an unsheltered windy and dark railway platform get a taxi?

One did turn up, but only on the offchance of a fare.

All train operators have a duty of care to their fare-paying passengers, and it is a pity that this is treated so capriciously or even ignored.

Last year, there was a case where a bus driver was sanctioned for dumping a vulnerable schoolchild in the middle of nowhere, with tragic results. Great attempts have been made at Northallerton to safeguard against railway related suicides.

Surely the welfare of vulnerable elderly passengers ought to have equal prominence?

The revised franchise, which takes over on April 1 should sort this out as a first priority!

Chris M Purser, Sowerby, Thirsk