Passengers on the high speed service to London have described their early morning commute as a daily “nightmare” after the number of carriages on their train was halved, leading to overcrowding - with standing room only for many.

And they are furious that they may be forced to travel on the shorter train until December, despite paying more than £6,000 for an annual season ticket to St Pancras.

The 6.15am service from Margate to St Pancras International, which stops at Ashford at 7.06am has been reduced from 12 carriages to six after one of the trains was damaged earlier in the summer.

The Javelin trains come in units of six carriages which cannot be divided, meaning that the whole train is removed from service if damaged.

An annual standard class high speed season ticket from Ashford International costs £6116.00 - more if the London underground service is included - and customers have detailed their frustration.

Edward Lewis from Stelling Minnis said: “I catch the slow train each morning from Sandling near Hythe to Ashford and then catch the high speed into St Pancras each day. I have done this journey for over two years and always travel on the same trains.

“Mondays curiously are not as busy as Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when you are lucky if you can get a seat even with a 12 car train at 7.06am. It then calms down on Thursdays and Fridays as there are less people travelling.

“What is going to happen when all of the new houses are built around Canterbury, Ashford and Hythe over the next few years adding many hundreds of people who want to travel into London each day?”

Ms Williams from Singleton said: “I catch the train about twice a month and it’s now become a nightmare to find a seat, and a nightmare standing, as you have no personal space.

“It’s not a journey I look forward to and hope they soon put it back to 12 car train.

“For the cost of £70.10 for a ticket, it’s not good value, good customer service and not good for anyone!

“What if there was a crash, with this many people, standing squashed together, the accident would be made a lot worse and where would insurances stand?”

David Walmsley, who usually gets the 7.06am train from Ashford said: “There are three really busy commuter trains in the morning, the 6.36am, 7.06am and 7.36am. All were 12 carriage trains.

“Then four weeks ago the 6.36am dropped to six carriages due to the carriage needing repair work. Now 7.06 has also dropped to six!

“HS1 is meant to be the best train in the country but now the overcrowding in the morning is getting ridiculous.”

Chris Ward-Jones tweeted: “Just paid £6,776 to #southeastern who then cut my 12 car high speed to 6. Tweeted to ask if they would also reduce ticket cost. No reply!”

SHRIMP Hastings @1066shrimprail tweeted: “@Se_Railway units are not designed for high density usage as they do not have sufficient grip bars for pax [passengers] to hold at 140 mph.”

A Southeastern spokesman said: “We’ve had to take one of our high speed trains out of service.

“The train was damaged while in the depot, and following assessment, the repair work is complex and will take considerable time to fix.

“This unfortunately means that the 06:15am Margate to St Pancras service will be formed of six carriages instead of 12.

“We know this is far from ideal and we’re really sorry for the inconvenience this may cause. These changes will be in place until the damaged train is fixed.

"It is not fair for people paying for a ticket to stand their entire journey" - Damian Green MP

“We will keep passengers updated as to when the service will return to having 12 coaches.”

In messages to passengers seen by the Kentish Express, Southeastern said: “Due to the extent of the damage we’ve had to take one of our 6-carriage units out of service for repair.

“As our high speed trains are built by Hitachi in Japan, all spare parts are manufactured and assembled there. We’re trying very hard to make sure the work is completed as quickly as possible, but it is unlikely this unit will be back in service before the end of December.

“It isn’t possible for us to remove individual carriages on our high speed trains as they come as a unit consisting of six carriages. This is why our high speed services run either with six carriages, or 12.

“As this does leave us short by one 6-carriage unit we’ve had to take the decision to shorten two services from 12 carriages down to six.

"Originally the decision was made to reduce the 05.46 Margate to St Pancras, and 17.55 St Pancras to Broadstairs services, from 12 carriages to six. But after monitoring both of these services it has been decided to revert these back to having 12 carriages from Monday 5 September.

“We [are] of course still short of one train unit, and it does mean we’ll have to reduce the carriage length of two of our high speed trains. So from Monday 5 September the 06.15 Margate to St Pancras, and the 18.55 St Pancras to Faversham services, will be formed of six carriages instead of 12.

“The decision to shorten these two specific services has been based on our current loading figures over the past year. However, we’ll continue to monitor loading figures so that we can match capacity with demand, and to minimise crowding where possible.

“On some occasions - between now and the end of December - we may be able to release an additional train to strengthen these two services to 12 carriages. However, we feel it’s much better to aim for consistency so that our passengers know which service is going to be formed of six carriages.

“Since its inception in 2009 the high speed service has seen phenomenal passenger growth and in response to demand has been extended to east Kent and Maidstone West and all available units are in service.”

Ashford MP Damian Green said: “I completely understand why this needs to be dealt with urgently.

“I will get in contact with Southeastern and tell them that it needs to be earlier than December that this needs to be put right.

“I hope that we get services back to normal.

“I hope that Southeastern can fix the effects of this accident.

“It is not fair for people paying for a ticket to stand their entire journey.”

Anyone with questions is asked to contact Southeastern’s customer services team on 0345 322 7021 or visit southeasternrailway.co.uk/contact-us