The significance of a humble table

The other day I took one of my regular trains to London and discovered I was travelling on one of the refurbished Pendolinos. I use the wheelchair space in standard coaches B or D in a Pendolino. I like travelling on Pendolinos in the morning because there is a table in the wheelchair space, and I can do a bit of work on the way to Euston. That’s not possible on a London Northwestern train, as there is no table in the wheelchair space – at least not one that is remotely usable, just a little shelf sticking out of the side of the train. As someone who has a range of different jobs, all with lots of reading, the opportunity to do just that little bit of extra work when travelling is really important to me, and I can’t hold my iPad or my MacBook on my lap.

I was surprised to see, instead of the usual fixed table, something that could have been a table, but folded down. My PA tried to put the ‘table’ up and couldn’t manage, so a couple of other passengers tried to help. They couldn’t work out how to do it either, nor could I. Four brains on what looked like a relatively straightforward task but clearly wasn’t.?

Not long into the journey, after I had given up and decided I would scroll through my phone instead, the train manager came along and one of the passengers who had been helping asked him how to put the table up. He couldn’t work it out either, even with the help of a carriage key – a kind of combination of a big allen key and screwdriver, critical to so many bits of equipment on the railway.?

I returned to scrolling through my phone. I tried not to get angry about it.?

But it felt as if, despite the advances in accessibility, the understanding of disabled people as equal citizens who work and contribute to society is diminishing. We must be travelling to go shopping or visiting Auntie Flo; we can’t possibly want to put a computer on a table and do some work because we just don’t work, do we? I arrived at work a little grumpy, but somehow managed to put it behind me and focus on the job in hand.

When I got home, I decided check out the Avanti website to find out whether there actually was a table in refurbished standard class carriages and, if so, how to operate it. It’s often better to know these things for oneself – I don’t mind training people to use their own equipment! I would rather they be efficient and treat me safely and I’m happy to facilitate that.

I found plenty of information about the refurbished trains. I took a little trip by drone on YouTube through a standard class carriage – but sadly it wasn’t one of the accessible ones so that didn’t help. I found the page that referred to the wheelchair space on the new trains, but only the space in first class – nothing about standard. I checked out the train seating diagram and yes, indeed, there is a wheelchair space marked in B and D, as well as the first class one, so clearly wheelchair users are still expected to want to travel standard class. Just not do anything useful while they’re travelling. In desperation, I asked the online bot: is there a table for wheelchair users in coaches B and D in the refurbished trains? The answer I got gave me the details for booking assistance on my next journey.

I decided that my next step should be to enquire of Avanti about wheelchair access and tables on the refurbished trains, so I found the contact-us page. I didn’t want to make a complaint and I didn’t want assisted travel. But when I chose the general enquiry route, none of the options offered was remotely helpful – the closest was assisted travel. Reluctantly, I tried that one. As date and time of travel were mandatory fields, and I wanted to make a general enquiry, that wasn’t any good. I didn’t want to book a journey. I closed the website still frustrated, bemused by the lack of information about the basic stuff that wheelchair users need when travelling.

I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I could make a complaint, and perhaps I should. But that’s so tedious and time-consuming. Or demand to be put in first class when I need to work on the train even though I’ve got a standard class ticket?

When I was on a European project to improve access to heavy rail systems for disabled people at the turn of the century, we visited several different countries to review their provision and compare notes. Country representatives were very proud of their accessibility and showed off the ‘best bits’ to project members. If I hadn’t been a member of the party, I have no doubt they would all have thought everything was marvellous. Unfortunately, my very presence meant that any problems were starkly revealed. In Amsterdam no one came to put me on the train. In Spain we were treated to a trip in first class on the new high-speed trains – but there wasn’t a wheelchair space in first class. In Sweden, the train journey couldn’t accommodate me at all, so I was bussed from station to station. And so on… It’s only by involving the breadth of your customer base, including disabled people, in design and development that you can find out what really works.

Disabled people want to do the same things as other people want to do. If you don’t see us around, don’t assume we’re not interested – just check out how accessible things are(n’t) and you might understand why we are not using them. Leaders, board members, designers, please don’t just get excited about innovations and improvements. Please ask yourselves and your teams: ‘is this really an improvement for?all?our customers?’.

Someone coined the phrase: diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance. Avanti may have invited me to the party, but I had to play the part of a wallflower – they definitely didn’t want to dance with me.