THOUSANDS of seats are being ripped out of trains to create more standing room as a cheap solution to overcrowding on the busiest rail franchise in Britain.

South West Trains is installing extra handholds and creating “perches” in place of seats. Almost 500 carriages, including some which entered service only two years ago, will lose more than a fifth of their seats.

The increase in empty floor space will allow the Government to claim that it is meeting targets on reducing overcrowding. Passengers with 0.54 square metres of floor space are not deemed to be on an overcrowded train. (That could, for example, be an area 60cm by 90cm, that is slightly less than three double-page spreads of The Times, which laid toe-to-toe measure 60cm by 108cm).

South West Trains is already officially the most overcrowded franchise and is forecast to carry 20 per cent more passengers by 2016. The Department for Transport does not consider a train to be overcrowded until there are more than 35 people standing for every 100 with seats. But South West Trains breaches even what the department describes as “the acceptable number of passengers in excess of capacity”.

The 8.04am from Isleworth to Waterloo has 792 seats but carries an average of 1,138 passengers (44 standing per 100 seats), according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act. The 6.42am from Haslemere to Waterloo has 598 seats but carries 845 passengers (41 standing per 100 seats).

The company, which carries 160 million passengers a year on a network stretching from the South Coast to London Waterloo, said that the changes “will allow more people to stand in comfort”.

SWT claimed last month that it would increase the number of seats on peak suburban services by 20 per cent under its new ten-year contract.

But when questioned by The Times, the company said that this had been a mistake and that much of the promised new capacity would be in the form of standing room rather than seats. Under the terms of the contract, it add ten carriages to its fleet of 1,400.

The company has already begun removing 72 seats from its 20-year-old class 455 trains, which operate between Waterloo and the suburbs, including Chessington, Kingston, Guildford, Epsom, Hampton Court and Shepperton. It is also planning to take seats out of 28 Desiro trains, which were delivered from their German manufacturer only two years ago. These trains serve Wimbledon, Surbiton, Woking and dozens of other stations.

A spokeswoman said: “In an ideal world no one would have to stand but we do not live in an ideal world. We recognise that passenger numbers are continuing to grow and we are reconfiguring the trains to give the best possible capacity.”

The company believes that creating wider aisles will encourage people to move away from the doors, allowing all the available floor space to be used. It claims that most passengers who cannot find a seat have to stand for only 20 minutes.

Britain has the fastest growing railway in Europe, with passenger numbers up 42 per cent in the past decade.

In 2003 the Strategic Rail Authority proposed lengthening platforms on routes into Waterloo to accommodate trains with up to 12 carriages. The authority was abolished last year before it could make any progress towards this.

Network Rail made similar suggestions in March but admitted that there was no budget or timetable for the improvements. The Government made no mention of lengthening platforms when it awarded the new ten-year franchise last month.

Chris Grayling, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said: “We must provide longer trains rather than squeezing more standing passengers into existing carriages. It is unacceptable that people are paying more for their tickets but are increasingly less likely to get a seat.”

From 2009 SWT plans to encourage people to travel earlier or later by offering cheaper season tickets not valid between 8am and 9am.

• How to test if your train is too crowded: take three double-page spreads from The Times (after you've read them) and lay them so that the printed area overlaps. You should be able to stand on them and read the rest of your paper in comfort. Have you ever really enjoyed that much space in the rush hour?

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• Even Tokyo never has to carry passengers on the roof. On some lines in India, the driver sounds his horn before bridges and bends so people can duck or hold on more tightly

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