‘The system is broken’: Wheelchair user slams train company after he was trapped in carriage as hundreds complain about accessibility issues
Wheelchair user Nathan Rollinson has found himself stuck at multiple stations this year following a breakdown in communications - or a fault with the technology - that left him unable to get off trains.
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Videos shared by Mr Rollinson on social media show the realities of using public transport for someone with accessibility issues.
In one incident, Mr Rollinson told staff at Charing Cross that he needed assistance to get off the train at Waterloo East. They contacted their colleagues to inform them and helped him onto the train using a ramp.
However, when he got to Waterloo East, there was nobody there to meet him and he was trapped on the train for 10 minutes.
To stop the train from leaving without him getting off, he pulled the emergency alarm and wedged his chair in the door to prevent the doors from closing.
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“Then next, the driver's going to go down into being like, ‘whoever's blocking the door, get out the way, get out the effing way’,” Mr Rollinson told LBC.
“There were passengers on the train, who could clearly see it wasn't me being at fault.
“They started getting off the train, trying to get down to the driver, trying to find the emergency alarm on the platform, which wasn't working, just trying to find any stuff.
“And the whole time, the doors kept on trying to close on me and my wheelchair and my arm and my leg.”
Mr Rollinson complained about the experience to Southeastern, the train operator running the service, who told him that they had been told he was going to London Bridge, where he would transfer to the Jubilee Line.
Following an investigation, it was determined that staff at Charing Cross had confused Mr Rollinson with a separate passenger with mobility issues who was travelling to London Bridge.
They apologised and offered him £100 in compensation.
“It’s honestly ridiculous the amount of times I've had to threaten legal action and get solicitors, and then all they've done is turn around and said ‘oh, we'll improve, here's £1,000, go away’.”
Southeastern told Mr Rollinson that “it has in place appropriate policies, procedures and training designed to support disabled passengers and to meet its statutory obligations”.
“However, on this occasion, the failure arose from an isolated breakdown in communication rather than any systemic failure or unlawful treatment.”
Documents seen by LBC show that hundreds of complaints are made every year to Southeastern by disabled passengers or those with accessibility issues.
In 2025, more than 525 complaints were made to Southeastern regarding accessibility by 258 passengers.
It was similar in 2024, when 292 passengers made 560 complaints.
The top five stations to have received the most complaints between 2020 and 2026 (to date) were: London Bridge, London Victoria, London St Pancras, Waterloo East, and Charing Cross.
Mr Rollinson told LBC that this isn’t an isolated incident and is not just with Southeastern.
He said: “Every day there are problems with disabled passengers and ramps, or just being abandoned on trains.
“Even when you do book, it still doesn't work. It just constantly ends up breaking, the systems broken.”
In the same week that Mr Rollinson was trapped on a train at Waterloo East, he became trapped at multiple points while using the London Underground.
Across one journey, he was stuck at London Bridge, then he was directed towards Bank, where he, again, became stranded, before experiencing a further issue at Elephant & Castle.
It’s clear that issues with accessibility are not just limited to National Rail services.
Transport for London received almost 1,000 complaints last year regarding accessibility across the tube network.
Highgate Underground Station, Kings Cross St Pancras, and Waterloo were the focus of most of the complaints in 2025.
And, so far this year, almost 50 complaints have been made about St John’s Wood.
Mr Rollinson says that there needs to be an “actual response to fix the system” instead of just “fobbing off” people.
“They have all these panels and they say, ‘oh, we'll include disabled people’.
“But, the disabled people they're including are influencers who never have issues.
“Or they've got 20,000 followers on Instagram, so they get a direct response from ministers.”
David Wornham, Customer Experience Director at Southeastern Railway, said: "We are very sorry for the experience Mr Rollinson had and for the failure to provide the assistance he had requested for his journey.
“Mr Rollinson's assistance request was mistakenly linked to another passenger, meaning the assistance he needed at Waterloo East was not provided. That should not have happened, and we fully recognise the distress this will have caused.
"Our colleagues support around 233,000 assisted journeys every year and this number is growing strongly. Southeastern is recognised by the independent Office of Rail and Road as one of the UK's top-performing operators for passenger assistance. Their research found that 96 per cent of customers were satisfied with the assistance received at the station."
Mark Evers, TfL's lead on Customer Insight, Strategy and Experience, said: “We are committed to making our transport network as fair, accessible and inclusive as possible and Mr Rollinson’s experiences fell well short of our standards.
“Our investigation showed that these were due to an unfortunate combination of unavailability of staff, a separate safety incident and human errors, and we understand how frustrating and inconveniencing these incidents must have been for him.
“We have made our apologies to Mr Rollinson and learnt from his experiences to make improvements.
“We are continuously working to improve our network, and through our customer inclusion plan Equity in Motion we have completed more than half of more than 100 actions to make our network more accessible.
"We also continue to work closely with our Independent Disability Advisory Group, with lived experience of disability, to ensure our services meet people’s needs.”