Posts tagged with "travel"

Dear Fat Controller

Occasionally, I use South West Trains to commute from my home in sunny Norbiton into the City of London. However before you say anything, don't worry, I am not a merchant banker despite what my friends say.

Today, in an attempt to secure a seat, I delayed my departure slightly and caught the legendary 08:36 service from Norbiton. Unfortunately, I narrowly missed a highly prized seat when a rather forceful gentleman, who boarded after me, miraculously managed to reach the last vacant seat 0.74 seconds before me. Bastard.

According to the official South West Trains timetable, which is proudly pinned up in my downstairs lavatory, this service that leaves at 08:36 should take 30 minutes, precisely, arriving at its final destination at 09:06.

Today's journey left on time and arrived at Waterloo at 09:14 - a mere 8 minutes late. This isn't 5% late. This isn't 10% late. This isn't 20% late. This delay of 8 minutes on a 30 minute journey represents a delay of 26.66667%.

Still, I guess I should be grateful that the cost of my weekly TravelCard (Zones 1-5) has only increased by a paltry 6.81% from £44 to £47 from January 1. If the Financial Controller from South West Trains saw these metrics, he may well (incorrectly) conclude that if the trains run 26% late, then the cost of the ticket should rise by the corresponding percentage.

During our extended, tedious, never ending journey where we frequently came to a grinding halt outside a station or lingered for four thought provoking minutes adjacent to that cemetery near Clapham Junction, I am pleased to report that we were afforded the courtesy of the occasional helpful announcement from the guard: 'Ladies and gentlemen. We apologise for the short delay but we are being held at a red signal. We hope to be underway again shortly'.

The thing is - this delay isn't a one-off. This isn't a delay caused by the inclement weather we experienced before Christmas. This sort of delay is now routine.

In fact, these delays are so routine that people don't even moan any more. People just shrug their shoulders, scurry along the platform onto the tube network and accept this poor service as the norm.

Thankfully, I don't have an annual season ticket and I am not condemned to using South West Trains every single working day. I am an occasional commuter but whenever I do use the service, it invariably arrives late. Once it was just 12 seconds late - if only the driver hadn't lingered at Wimbledon reading the football reports in 'The Mirror'.

Now, I guess it would be an interesting exercise to keep detailed metrics for all my journeys in order to support this bold claim with statistical evidence that could then form the basis of a compensation claim.

However, I refuse to do this for two reasons; firstly I simply can't be arsed and secondly that way lies danger and obsessive compulsive train-spotter disorder (OCTSD). Before you know it, I would be stood, wearing an anorak, on a wet and windy, desolate platform 11 at Clapham Junction late at night holding a video camera, desperately trying to capture the rare '337919' engine that powers the Gatwick Express.

Obviously, I don't want to waste your time and money by forcing you to issue a stock response to a yet another stock complaint from 'Mr. Angry Commuter from Redhill' so here's my constructive suggestion in order to significantly improve the service between Norbiton and Waterloo.

Simply increase the planned duration of all journeys between Norbiton and Waterloo to 45 minutes. Currently some journeys are scheduled to take 28 minutes while others are supposed to take 30 minutes. This inconsistency needs to be addressed.

Altering the timetable in this way will help ensure that all journeys arrive not just on schedule but ahead of schedule as in early.

This seemingly minor change will have multiple benefits; commuters will disembark, happy and smiling, consulting their watches and exclaiming '8 minutes early. Again. How fantastic. What a marvellous service. I really must email South West Trains congratulating them on this sustained improvement in the service'.

Following this modest increase in the estimated journey times, customer complaints will rapidly fall to zero. This means you can sack all the people in the customer service centre with a corresponding beneficial effect to the very important 'bottom line'.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, South West Trains will meet all their performance targets and you will be eligible for your massive financial bonus and a well deserved promotion to 'Morbidly Obese Controller'.

Hopefully, you will consider this suggestion and implement it initially on a pilot basis on the Shepperton line, If, as I am convinced it will be, this change proves to be a success, this novel and innovative change to make the railway timetable actually reflect reality can be rolled out across the entire network in 2012. Just in time for the Olympics.

Yours sincerely

Norman Brightside

This morning I commuted, Reggie Perrin style, from my leafy suburb into the heart of London by train. Nothing too unusual about that.

After I paid for my daily travelcard, I took my place on an unusually crowded platform. An unusually crowded platform normally means only one thing. An lengthy delay inevitably followed by an overcrowded, late running train.

Sure enough, I soon gathered that there had been a fatality on this section of the railway line last night which caused major delays and now had a knock-on effect to this morning.

Naturally enough, I didn't hear this update from South West Train staff at the ticket booth or over the loudspeaker system. Instead I heard this important travel status update from a gentleman in a smart, grey suit (and not so smart white trainers) giving a blow by blow account to his secretary, Julie.

The gentleman spoke with such a loud, clear authoritative voice, I took the opportunity to thank him and suggested that he should get a job as a station announcer. Thankfully, the delays didn't inconvenience him that much as his first meeting was only at 10:30a.m - a catch up on the Q3 numbers with Brian and Phil.

A train arrived. It was already overcrowded with standing room only. Everyone attempted to pile on and most of them succeeded. I stood to one side and watched the melee with a few other commuters who didn't fancy standing for half an hour, uncomfortably positioned, face to face, desperately trying to avoid bodily contact with a young lady's breasts or worse, with your head positioned directly under someone's sweaty armpits.

Two minutes later, another train arrived. It was empty. Gleefully, we all boarded and took our choice of seats in the empty carriages.

The train set off - it didn't stop at New Malden and it didn't stop at Raynes Park. Even better, it turns out that we are on a fast service that only stops at Wimbledon, Clapham Junction and Vauxhall. Only this train didn't stop at Wimbledon. Nor did it stop at Earlsfield. It just sailed straight through both stations at great speed.

We also sailed straight past Clapham Junction (the busiest railway station in England) which was a surprise to a couple of people who had got up and stood by the doors, hoping to disembark. I spotted the earlier train packed to the rafters with yet more people trying to board, politely enquiring in a very British way: 'Could you possibly move down inside the carriage - possibly - at all ?'

Back on our train, no-one got off (even if they wanted to), no-one got on and no-one spoiled the blissfully quiet environment with their mobile phones and discarding their copies of 'Metro' so I was able to enjoy my high speed journey, listening to 'Boxer' by The National, in a virtually empty carriage.

As we approached the final destination (Waterloo) I was slightly worried I was sitting on a ghost train with no driver at the controls. Briefly, I wondered whether we were, in fact, even going to stop at Waterloo or simply plough straight on through the buffers into the station concourse, killing 34 people who were staring blankly at the 'Departures' board.

We arrived at Waterloo and thankfully stopped at platform 4. The journey which is normally timetabled to take 29 minutes and normally takes closer to 35 was over. In a new world record of 18 minutes.