End of the line

Or... last rant about the trains, and I'll get on to more interesting things. At least until the next time I get stuck on one for three hours longer than scheduled.

I talked to a Southeastern man the other day who told me that there hasn't been a full service since before the fist lot of December snow.

Almost exactly a year ago, I kept a diary of my journeys for a while and found that, outside of the snow period, the vast majority of trains were on time with the odd five- or ten-minute delay here or there and very occasionally a broken down train caused a spot of chaos, all of which made me think that poor service was simply perceived, and subject to the right of the British public to whinge. 

A year on, and the service is definitely markedly worse.  Monday evening my train was on time leaving and on time arriving. However, previous services were cancelled, resulting in massive overcrowding.

Anyone who has gone to Kings Cross Underground station will be familiar with this – the kind of overcrowding where people who have squeezed in are relying on the doors closing to push them the rest of the way in. This is nasty and uncomfortable, but kind of acceptable when you only have to spend ten minutes with your nose in someone's armpit, and someone's brolly humping your leg, and there is the knowledge that trains are running back-to-back three minutes apart, so you can step back and take the next one, and you'll just have to deal with being a few minutes late.

But we're talking about a mainline train here, just two of them an hour and whose first stop is 25 minutes outside of Victoria. Waiting for the next train can mean missing dinner, or your daughter's school play, or your dental appointment, or Coronation Street or... Not important for those looking at the 'big picture' but everything to the people actually paying for use of the service.

 

I was going to end rant there. But last night we were back to the service issue. This time our trains brakes kept locking up, meaning that we were going nowhere for long periods. When we got to Maidstone East, we were chucked off to be picked up by the following train. I suppose it was managed well in that we were only 35 minutes late when it could have been worse. And the Dunkirk spirit, as always, bonded the passengers.

But somehow that doesn't make up for much.