WITH reports of late trains, cramped conditions and even people fainting due to overcrowding, it seems the promise of improved services for Bolton’s frustrated commuters have not yet materialised.

This week marked the launch of Northern Rail’s improved timetable, with the operator promising 340,000 extra seats on Bolton services each year and crucially an added 570 seats on the “cattle-truck” peak morning services.

The new timetable coincided with the opening of the redeveloped Farnworth Tunnel — which has led to severe disruption to local services for the past eight months.

However, with the first working week out of the way, passengers in Bolton say they are not feeling the benefit of any extra capacity.

Bolton commuter Iain Williams caught the 7.55am train to Hazel Grove twice this week and said conditions were so bad on board that one passenger fainted.

He said: “Both times the train was approximately 10 minutes delayed and both left with commuters still on the platform because it was too full.

“One girl passed out on the train on Tuesday as it was so full and incredibly warm — she had to be held up and pushed towards a seat where someone passed her some water and she eventually came round a bit.”

Fellow commuter Martin Smith is also unconvinced by the supposed improvements.

He said: “When they say there are millions of extra seats per year, I have noticed that non-rush hour trains seem to have extra carriages, but I don’t accept that there is any difference at all during rush hour, when the extra carriages are desperately needed.”

Halliwell resident Travis Hesford, aged 27, also commutes each day to Manchester.

He said: “If anything I think things have got worse.

“On Wednesday evening we were all cramped and stood up and staff on the platform were still shouting at us to move down the train — we were like sardines.”

Susan Burrough from Breightmet said: “I travel from Bolton to Manchester for work and I can’t say I have noticed much change this week in terms of extra capacity — conditions on board are still very cramped.”

Angry passengers have also taken to Twitter to vent their frustrations.

Jane Tuco posted: “Why was the service so much better whilst work was still being carried out on Farnworth Tunnel? Back to being a nightmare.

“Trains between Bolton and Piccadilly definitely back to normal this week — late and crowded.”

Bolton North East MP David Crausby has previously welcomed the announcement of more capacity, but said he was “sceptical” about the impact they would have.

He said: “I have also been contacted on my Facebook and Twitter pages by frustrated passengers.

“I think they painted a very rosy picture of how things would be and I was a bit sceptical — I just want to see the service delivered for Bolton people.

“This is 2015, we really should be able to get on a train and get a seat. I won’t be satisfied until people are able to say ‘this is a fantastic service'.”

Mr Crausby said he will be requesting a meeting with Northern Rail early in the New Year to discuss the situation.

A Northern Rail spokesperson said:“We appreciate that some of our services through Bolton have historically been very busy, which is why we undertook a detailed analysis to identify which services were most in need of extra capacity.

"As a result of introducing even more electric trains in the North West, we have been able to bring a large, permanent improvement in capacity to existing services through Bolton.

"These capacity benefits have been in place since Monday and we have been delivering the promised improvements which, in total, mean the route will see an increase of 340,000 extra seats a year.

"This is a particularly busy time of year and as an industry, we’re seeing increasing numbers of customers choosing to travel by train. We’ll be monitoring numbers closely to ensure we’re delivering the best possible services for our customers through Bolton.”