Thursday, February 19, 2009

Southern Rail Torture

I grow old I grow old I shall wear my trousers rolled . I swore I would not ,but I do . I walk through the door , get home fling down my ruck sack and saying ...those ***** trains again ( Mummy did Daddy say a bad word ...?) . I contemplate slipping polonium into the groovy flasks of Italian tourists taking up room with their vile luggage ,and darkly wonder if the endless suicides on the Southern Network are in fact the diversion of a pasty faced bureaucrat chuckling in his snug burrow.
Once life was sweet. I would board the Southern train to Lewes of an Eve read a slim leather bound of English Lyric verse perhaps munching contentedly the while on a chocolate hob knob , in my seat . As the glorious Downs appeared a feeling if infinite well being would melt the memory of a snotty client away leaving me fit to read “Billy Goats Gruff “ and wait an hour for tea. Not any more
They changed things , and as ever , change is bad .Nothing has been said , the truth has only emerged from a whistle blower from Southern Rail known to a colleague . Southern, have taken over the Gatwick Express which now runs to Brighton. As it needs a five mile gap and runs more frequently they have cancelled some of the trains taking commuters from London to the coast. The result is a gazillion terrified eyes staring through wooden slatted cattle trucks in a twist of bodies and bags similar to Picasso’s Guernica. It is an earthly hell compete with mutterings ...(no idea love ...well see you when I see you....”) . This outrage comes hot on the heels of a vicious hike in fares as well.
I was already building up to the shamefully Pooterish exingency of writing to complain when I saw that Passenger Focus have published Survey .It shows the average season ticket holder pays almost twice as much here as anywhere else in the world . A succession of above inflation fare rises have been stitched up between the Franchise holders and the government and you can rest assured that the first people Brown is going to attack to fill his debt hole is going to be ordinary stiffs trying to get to work . Fact ;he plans to reduce the subsidy which will provoke more fare rises.
You can begin to see how tough times bring out Political extremism, ..”....at least he made the trains run on time ...” , they will say . Well if by he they mean Mussolini he did not .They remained chaotic not withstanding the myth . It is true however that Japanese trains are timed to the quarter minute . In 1994 they ran an average of 24 seconds late . The man in charge, on hearing the news, strode to the cherry tree of contrition took from his scabbard an short sword and cut out his own innards.
“ I being shame on family country and self ,.,.,.” he said and they promptly upped their game to 12 seconds . The same bloke here would probably get an OBE.


Now who do I complain to and whom to I inform that they can raise their fares again but will have to do so over my dead body ? . ..I can hear it now “ We do apologise for the delay but there is a fatality at Lewes ....”


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