Anyone use them? I caught a train from Hexham to Newcastle to watch the West Brom game and the thing was jam-packed. The ticket machine was broken at Hexham, there was no one on board to buy a ticket from and we got dropped off on the other side of the barriers when we got into Newcastle. And everyone was the same, no payments were taken, the train company must have lost a thousand quid or more on one short journey. If only they had put on an extra train...they must have known it would be busy. Is this the norm, a lack of organisation?
I must add that on that journey we were like sardines but there was an upside in that I was cheek by jowl with some young bird for some time <old perv>
You expect a train company to anticipate demand and put more/less coaches on, or more less trains on? The privatisation of rail was as ridicolously short-sighted as selling Wembley would be. The public transport links in this country would make a Japanese transport minister commit suicide if they were in charge. I used to frequently commute via train, and it felt like there was zero regulation, because the service is so poor, the ticketing is so confusing, you get fined for getting off early or on late (wtf??), the trains are regularly late or broken... yet all the train company bosses get mega bucks. Metros and underground systems are kind of ok, buses do not run late enough and the different networks charge differently with crazy price gaps, and taxi firms are largely ripoff merchants. However, the drivinf population are 90% arseholes, with nobody able to indicate, tailgaters (these people should be killed via razor wire dildo), poor lane discipline, speeders, and the inconsiderate ****s who you let in and don't thank you (again, razor wire dildo). Work from home, that's my advice.
Spend a fair bit of my life waiting at train stations mainly to pick wife up and trains are very, very, very, very rarely on time. Never been able to work out why as there really isn’t much traffic on the lines in relative terms. Would re-nationalise the train industry. Privatization hasn’t and doesn’t work. So, if the trains are going to be a mess they may as well be our mess and not some independent company’s mess. Let’s take pride as a Nation in what we were always good at namely badly running inept nationalized industries.
I do the Hexham to ncl route often but stop off for a beer at every station. Usually too pissed to price if I bought a ticket or not lol.
Agree that trains should be renationalised. It makes absolutely no sense that it is a private service. The system with private franchises renting track off another private company is stupid. All profits made by these companies at our expense could either be ploughed back into the system or used to reduce fares if it was government-run. On top of that we allow foreign entities to bid on franchises and actually repatriate profits overseas. I am not against privatisation of industries but their goal should be to provide competition and make the service cheaper and more efficient - this doesn’t work with the railways. I only use train to go to london when I have to or come to the footy. Former is a good service, latter is crap. Often have to change in York then find I cant use trains coming from london up north. Mad.
