Let us start with the compliment, because it is genuine: LNER is our preferred way to travel to London. Over the years they have mostly done the things this site keeps asking train companies to do — the assistance turns up, the staff know their jobs, the journey works. When we have a choice of route, we choose them.
Which is why this post exists. A policy we only discovered by arguing about it has left us, more than once, unable to travel comfortably or at the times we wanted — and the problem is not rudeness or a broken lift. It is arithmetic.
What we kept seeing
On the 12:10 London to Leeds, the wheelchair space — seats 18 and 19 — showed as reserved. No wheelchair arrived. The space held luggage, and the passengers sat in the ordinary seats beside it. On other recent journeys the wheelchair area has been reserved by passengers with crutches, with a pushchair, and once with just luggage. And when we have tried to turn up and go, we have been refused travel because the wheelchair space was in use by a non-wheelchair passenger.
So Steve asked LNER directly, on X, why able-bodied passengers are able to book the wheelchair space at all.
The policy, in LNER’s own words
Credit where due: their social media team engaged properly, over several days. This is the policy as they stated it to us:
“The seats you are referring to are not solely for the use of wheelchair users — they are for those with reduced mobility and their companions. This means they are open for booking by anyone who contacts the Passenger Assist team and states they require assistance.”
LNER, via X direct message, February 2026
They also told us the numbers: two wheelchair spaces on a five-coach Azuma, three on a Mark IV, four on the longer nine- and ten-coach Azumas. And they said this: “we always prioritise passengers using a wheelchair and their companion, if there are any travelling on that service.”
Hold that last sentence next to being refused turn-up-and-go because the space was occupied by someone without a wheelchair. Prioritisation at booking time is not prioritisation on the platform. Once the space is sold, it is gone — and we are the ones left behind.
The arithmetic
A train has two, three or four wheelchair spaces — LNER’s own figures — and ten or more priority seats spread through the carriages. If passengers who can use an ordinary seat are booked into the wheelchair spaces, a handful of spaces absorbs the demand of both groups. One of those groups has somewhere else to sit. The other does not.
And to be clear about who is saying this: Steve broke his spine in 2014 and has reduced mobility himself. When he travels alone, he books a priority seat — that is what they are for. This is not a complaint about hidden disabilities. It is a complaint about the only two spaces Bev can physically occupy being open to people who have another option, on a train that is roughly one per cent wheelchair-accessible by seat count.
What it costs us
- The cheapest trains are usually fully booked for wheelchair spaces — and in our experience, the more expensive the train, the more likely the space is free. The policy quietly prices wheelchair users onto dearer services.
- Turn-up-and-go has failed us more than once — refused because the space was occupied by a non-wheelchair passenger. LNER themselves acknowledged that some passengers book multiple journeys as a “safety net”; their safety net removes ours.
- Luggage and pushchairs in the space is, in LNER’s words, “an ongoing issue” — their advice is to speak to the Train Manager, who is responsible for keeping the space clear.
What LNER say is coming
LNER told us they are installing more than 36,000 “SeatSense” sensors above every seat and wheelchair space, showing in real time whether each is occupied rather than relying on reservation data. That is genuinely welcome — it should help with the luggage-in-the-space problem and with finding a free space on the day. But a sensor cannot fix the core issue: it can tell you the space is taken; it cannot make the person taking it someone who had no other choice.
What we would ask LNER to do
Keep solving the findability problem — but not with the only spaces wheelchair users can occupy. An assistance passenger in an ordinary reserved seat has a coach letter and a seat number; staff know exactly where they are. Meet them at the coach door. Seat them in the priority seats nearest the doors if that helps.
- Hold the wheelchair spaces for passengers who cannot transfer to any other seat, releasing them only when no wheelchair user can still book that service.
- At minimum, require evidence — a disabled railcard, or a conversation with Passenger Assist about why the space specifically is needed — before the space can be booked in advance by someone without a wheelchair.
- Let on-train staff move a non-wheelchair passenger from the space to a priority seat when a wheelchair user needs it — on the day, not just in the booking system.
- Answer the complaints form. Ours went unanswered until we chased it on social media.
We say all this as customers who want to keep choosing LNER, and who will happily update this post the day the policy changes — or the day SeatSense proves us wrong.