There’s not quite so much bullsh*t about ‘customer services’ as there used to be. I think everyone knows that the railway service in this country is pretty dire most of the time and that no amount of announcements will really ease the pain of trying to get a train that runs on time from any two stations in the country.

Now that ‘National Express’ – a bus company for heavens sake – has taken over the east coast mainline I am actually developing a pathalogical hatred of this company, their trains and anything to do with them. So far this year I’ve been on about one train that runs on time. There are endless announcents very five minutes about ‘not smoking’ ‘make sure you’ve got the right ticket’ ’standard class tickets do not apply on this service’ ‘there is a selection of hot and cold snacks’…blah blah blah. The one time this endless verbal diarohea dries up is when the train comes grinding to a halt in the dark – as they frequently do. Then us – the CUSTOMERS – get told zilch.

I had a feeling in my bones that National Express running this service was going to be dreadful and they’ve done nothing since taking it over to take that chill away.

Now today I come to use their website. I stack up a nice collection of saved journeys (although I can only have five). When I come to purchase them I buy the first one, and then try to buy the second but get a message saying ‘You have to wait at least 5 minutes between subsequent purchases’.

What is the motto of this bunch of clowns? ‘We slow you up when ever we possibly can’. ?

And now having waiting the 5 minutes I get a message saying ‘Sorry, you’ve exceed the maximum number of purchases for today’. BUT I ONLY BOUGHT THREE TICKETS!!!!!!
Oh well, at least all the trains have been given another coat of paint. Amazing how there is always money for ‘branding’ but never seems to be enough to actually see the darn things run on time.