First Great Western (FGW) is reorganising its timetable, cutting some services, increasing the time between others and also reducing carriages on some trains.

The RMT union says the changes equate to cutting around 2,000 seats on trains a day.

Representatives of the RMT and the TUC were joined by Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy and passengers at Temple Meads station at around 3.30pm yesterday.

The crowd of around 50 then paraded with banners and placards to the offices of the Government Office of the South West (GOSW) at Temple Quay, where they presented a letter complaining about the cuts and asked it to be passed on to rail minister Tom Harris.

Some protestors were blaming the Government for not investing enough in the railways and said they were "squeezing" providers like FGW into making the cuts.

However, some others said FGW's priorities were at fault for cutting some less profitable services in favour of more lucrative ones.

The timetable changes will come into effect tomorrow.

It is likely they will effect services stopping at stations including Temple Meads, Severn Junction, Keynsham, Oldfield Park, Bedminster, Weston-super-Mare and Yate.

The changes have received so much protest that the train operator has already agreed to reduce the amount of cuts it intends to make.

It is understood the 69 daily services run by FGW in the region were to be reduced to 51, but will now only be reduced to 60.

Last week Mrs McCarthy launched an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons urging the government to invest in the rail network in the Bristol region. It has already been signed by 33 MPs.

On Wednesday, she and Bristol North West MP Doug Naysmith met with Mr Harris to discuss the changes.

Yesterday, Mrs McCarthy was joined in making speeches at the demonstration by the South West TUC's regional secretary Nigel Costley and by RMT assistant general secretary Pat Sikorsky. Mrs McCarthy said: "There is already overcrowding on some trains.

"These changes will mean people will also be left stranded on platforms. First Great Western should not be making these cuts."

Mr Sikorsky said: "This is absolute crazy madness and it has to be stopped.

"The Department of Transport is facing in two directions - on one side it is squeezing rail providers into giving more and more to the treasury and on the other it is saying it wants more people to travel by rail.

"The only way forward we can see is for the Government to bring it back in house and have a nationalised system."

Andrew Griffiths, First Great Western regional manager, said: "The whole programme of local train service is changing with the new timetable so there will be a fair bit of shifting around and people will have to adjust to the new patterns.

"There are some winners and losers - I agree there a slightly fewer local trains, but we have balanced this out with more capacity on High Speed Trains."