Another day, another cancelled train service.
It’s been over two and a half months since First Capital Connect were able to provide a reliable train service. I’ve seen more reliable Skodas. Actually, my Dad has one of the new ones which has provided a great taxi service over the years (thanks Dad).
Why am I so annoyed about the train service today, as opposed to all the other days it’s been delayed or cancelled? Because on Friday they promised that ‘normal’ train service would resume at the start of this week. ‘Normal’ lasted all of a Monday morning, and this evening we were back to broken down trains; which I guess is normal for First Capital Connect.
The poor service began last October just before I went to Egypt. Trains were fewer due to “staff training”, which escalated to driver’s walking out over a pay dispute whilst I was away wandering around Rameses II’s tomb.
Freshly tanned, I stumbled in to the driver mess which continued right up until the snow started settling. Then things developed from bad to worse with trains becoming fewer and further between, and they also began to get shorter. I’m not quite sure how snow reduces the number of carriages, but it does.
Last week saw the event of two late arrivals in to work thanks to a service which got stuck outside London Bridge for 2 hours (just outside my old flat, to rub salt in to the wound) and a service which got stuck at Loughborough Junction, which meant walking to Brixton underground station, getting a tube to King’s Cross and then going to Farringdon.
I guess a poor train service shouldn’t come as any big surprise. Right from childhood I was taught train services were unreliable with Gordon being unable to get his passengers up a hill, Henry getting stuck in a tunnel and Thomas finding himself down a coal mine. As much as the adventures of Thomas the Tank Engine tried to prepare me for disaster, the train service on Thameslink is far worse than anything on the Island of Sodor.
So I’ve done something about it. I’ve wrote to the MD of First Capital Connect; I’ve written to my local MP; I’ve written to BBC Watchdog; I’ve signed to petition to scrap First Capital Connect of it’s franchise and I’ve joined the quickly growing Facebook group.
All I want to do is get a train to work, it really shouldn’t be that hard. Should it?