All entries for Monday 14 November 2005

Choo choo

Writing about web page http://www.grandcentralrail.co.uk/

Today I travelled from Crewe to Leamington and managed to get a seat for all parts of my journey, in comparison to Friday's journey when I sat on the floor of the vestibule with several other commuters. This happens because I didn’t book my ticket in advance, but one shouldn’t have to on public transport, in my opinion. Imagine if you had to book a ticket for the bus!

Grand Central Railway, a company hoping to run trains along certain routes, is proposing that if you buy a ticket, but don’t get a seat, you should get half your money back. Ian Yeowart, managing director of Grand Central said “We don’t believe it’s right to pay the full fare if you have to stand for any part of the journey. In every other industry people expect to get what they pay for. Railways should be no different.” It makes sense to me, though I am just a lowly passenger. GNER who currently run “services” along these specific routes already, are trying to delay GCRs access to the route… I wonder why…

Sadly for me, I will not benefit from GCRs proposals. At the start of my journey I was given a questionnaire from the transport department concerning hours of travel and how often I made the journey. I bothered to fill it in the hope that this information might somehow be conveyed to the train companies, so that extra carriages can be stuck on at times at peak travel, giving everyone a seat. It wouldn't be difficult, it wouldn't cost a significant amount more and passengers would be much happier… Hey! A person can dream can’t they?

: 14 Nov 2005 22:30 |  Tags: Transport |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem