Martin Lewis: Money expert slams East Midlands Railway for 'degrading' packed train journey with 'one working toilet'

Martin Lewis, the money saving expert, has slammed East Midlands Railways after he says he was stuck on a packed train from London St Pancras to Sheffield with one working toilet. Lewis complained that the service was "degrading" and likened it to "something from the 19th century".

He voiced his outrage on social media about the overcrowded train which he estimated was carrying around 500 passengers. At 2.27pm, he wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “Dear @EastMidRailway this train (Ldn - Sheffield) is disgraceful. Every seat taken, every standing space taken, scores sitting in mid train corridors so I guess 500 people on it and ONLY ONE WORKING TOILET at one end, so people must crawl over each 100s to reach it.

“It’s degrading, like something from the 19th century. PS and as I walked to the loo, apologising profusely, a number of people asked me to say something publicly about it. One of the reasons for this tweet.” He later added: “PS it seems I may owe an apology to the 19th century - many saying trains then were efficient, on time, and luxury.”

Another passenger using the service said on X: "I was on this yesterday with wife and 2 children (aged 8 and aged 5) and forced to sit on floor next to door and the toilet. I had paid and reserved seating too. Also advised at ticket office I would get seated...which didn't happen."

One user responded to Lewis’ post that he had a similar experience with East Midlands Railway (EMR) a few months ago. The user wrote on X: “Happened to me on EMR a few months ago too. One working toilet and had to squeeze past so many people on a packed train to get to the other end of the train to find a working toilet. Seems EMR haven't learned or fixed up.”

EMR issued an apology hours after Lewis shared the post on Monday afternoon (20 February). The company blamed "network upgrades" for an influx of passengers, posting on X: "We are really sorry about your experience this afternoon. Vital infrastructure upgrades on the East Coast Mainline have resulted in a very large number of customers trying to travel with us rather than using the available rail replacement bus connections. We have strengthened services as much as possible and increased the number of staff to help manage this situation but clearly it has not worked as well as we would have liked, and we will work hard with the wider industry to learn from this."