Too much money, not enough service

I'm doing something right now that I've avoided doing so far on this blog, and that is writing a post of serious complaint. Why am I starting now, you ask? Because I have had it up to here with the sheer ineptitude, callousness and total waste of space that is the British rail system.

Sure, we all complain about the price of travelling on the train. We think it costs too much to get anywhere but try to circumvent that by buying advance tickets and getting railcards to lower the price. It's cheaper and less hassle than flying, right?

So wrong. I am currently on a journey that has had so many things go wrong with it, none of which are my fault. We've been looking for advance tickets to get up to Newcastle for ages...frankly they were all more expensive that buying two offpeak returns with a two-for-one railcard. Fine - £80 each later and we get to the train platform (ten minutes early I might add). Yet every single seat on this train is filled, all the luggage racks are stuffed to the brim and my £80 has paid for a seat on a dirty floor, outside a bathroon, right next to a door that doesn't instill me with a whole lot of confidence and is the only thing preventing me from falling out onto the tracks.

I am furious. I cannot believe that a train company is so ignorant that they lack any sort of predictions for how full a train is going to be. They haven't made any announcement over the intercom to even apologise for there not being
enough seats, not just for me but for the old woman who is currently balancing herself on a window ledge. These things tell me that customer service and customer satisfaction are two of the lowest points on this company's priority list. But hey ho - there's complimentary dining service for those in first class, so screw you little people who aren't sitting in there.

And what can we do about it? Absolutely nothing, except complain. So complain I do, and hope their stock crumbles.

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