Posted on Sunday, 19th April 2009 by admin
Nightmare Journeys
Knowing my place
I booked train tickets for my partner and I coming back from London. However when we got on the train it was totally full. Not only had someone had sat in our seats but they refused to move. We made a complaint to the ticketperson. He said that a carriage had had to be taken off and so the customers from that carriage had sat in our seats and there was nothing he could do about it.
It turned out to be the first class carriage. Well it’s nice to know that the railways permit those who have paid more for their seats to slum it in the cheap seats in such a dire emergency. I suspect that if it were to happen the other way round I would be stuck sitting on my luggage in the gangway with the rest of my fellow plebians.
Funnily enough I hire a car when I need to travel any long distance now which is not only more comfy and usually has a coffee holder built in, but it’s cheaper too
Always overcrowded
Basically my experience in the recent five months , traveling every weekday (apart from Tuesdays) at morning and evening peaks - Oldfield Park to Keynsham return - can be fairly accurately summarized as having NOT had the option of a seat on any service apart from a couple of rare occasions.
The services have always been so crammed full by the time they arrive (due to the shortforming of services into 2 carriages only) and my usual mode of travel is like a sardine, crammed in the gangway with all the other poor souls, propped up on my feet by those around me….
The only slight relief has been this last 2 weeks when the evening return service (1856 from Keynsham) has had space in the gangways. But since it has been formed from some really old stock which doesn’t even have ‘dropdown’ seats there, then i still had to stand.
I consider that this does not meet the standard of service that we pay for at all - and FGW should be offering all travellers (not just season tickets) compensation until the service improves.
Tags: Journeys, Nightmare
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