The Twelfth day of Christmas Southeastern

So I think you might have seen this but if you didnt it is worth mentioning again and again.

I thought I was clever setting up a blog to rant at Southeastern but I take my hat off to Adam Helal of St Leonard's. Who created a version of the Christmas carol The Twelve Days of Christmas in a protest at the service we get. Then had a flashmob singing it at Charring Cross.

Also he is showing great restraint in not using any swear words. I would have.
If SouthEastern do not read our complaint letters they might listen to a complaint song.

 http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/news/2010/december/15/commuter_in_flashmob.aspx

Here is hoping that when the cold snap hits later this week we can survive it.
Nick

Bob and None the hope of a service from Southeastern.

So it's amazing now that the snow has melted and it's just a bit cold the trains are back to normal service, e.g. we arrived at Cannon Street 10 minutes late. No apologies or explanation just a really long talk about being careful on the platform as it could be slippery.

Last week there was what can only be described as an epic fail by Southeastern to provide any service information or just anything really. Even the news managed to get a Southeastern Spokesperson (general liar) on to grill her about how they can call themselves a service. Sarah Boundy was here name and Polly Evans the busty new anchor from South East Tonight did a pretty good job of not taking her flannelling bullshit. Here is a link to the clip

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11916142

Sarah Boundys main message was that we hope that we are giving a better service. We hope that the website is better.
We hope that we give good value for money and you have No Hope of getting any money back from us thought the thieving bastards.

The main word here is Hope!!! I don't want to get a train and Hope!! that I will make it to the f&*king destination, I want to get there. I don't want to get to the station and Hope!! that the train advertised is going to be there I want it to be there. It is not an unreasonable request you bunch of fuktards!

She was bangin on about the website being nice to look at. It doesn't work and is not fit for purpose but it looks all nice. When she was being questioned over refunds she kept referring to the customers charter on refunds. Why would they give refunds that is almost like taking responsibility for you actions and as its everyone else's fault be it Networkrail, bombader who make the trains or the gods.

If the amount of ranting I have seen on the web is to go by Southeastern have majorly failed to impress anyone.
The journey home was not even on time. I got to Cannon Street ready for the 5:45 to get home only to find that the train was delayed by 45 minutes. So it will get in later than the 6:08. Useless there was not even a bit of snow it was just a little bit cold.

Liar Liar pants on Fire

So this morning I awoke to a bit more snow hanging around. Its not so bad I thought. I have seen krispy kreme donut with a deeper coating of sugar than the amount of snow I am looking at. Before going to the station I will have a quick look on the website to see what is happening. They wouldn’t lie on the website would they? it will show in real time where the trains are. Well it does but it’s a work of fiction depending on where you are. I put in Ashford and it showed that it was on time. I was going to take it at face value but that would have been silly so I had a deeper rummage.


My advice is if you want to see were your train is don’t put in the station you are at but put in the next smallest station up the line.

See the picture

The question is how can the train be on time everywhere before and after a station but be Delayed at the station. According to the Southeastern spokesman on the radio the site is a great improvement on last year where they had a text based single page of information. I don’t care if its written in pink on a pink background with flashing animation. If it’s wrong there is no point to it. You cannot defend it by saying its better looking than last year but don’t believe what it’s telling you we are just making that up.


If you haven’t seen this http://railfail.epetitions.net/ fill it in.

It a petition “Southeastern Rail should putting all fares down, not up!”

It’s by a site that is like mine but much more of a professional and less ranty than mine.

Snow stops play already! FFS

So this Monday morning I was delayed for a foot numbingly 40 minutes getting into work.
The reason for this delay was due to inclement weather. FFS (For F*&ks Sake) this is England its all inclement weather with 4 days of sun a year.

Standing there looking at the announcement board it said "Please look at Timetables" or "works of fiction" as I like to call them. The automated announcement did kindly tell us every minute that the 6.57 is 10 minutes late at 7.07 just in case maths is not your strong point. It did get tricky when we got to 7.10 I had to think hard then. There was no real information until the natives started to get restless, when the next lot of commuters turned up on the platform to see us all standing around looking cold and pissed off more than usual.
There was an announcement that due to the inclement weather there are problems with the signalling in the Ashford area and engineers are working hard to rectify the problem.

So I took pictures of the blizzard that managed to bring Southeastern to a standstill.

Its not exactly heavy is it. I am so glad they are putting up the costs to maintain and upgrade the rail network.
Oh no that's what has been happening for the last 10 years. So when are we going to start seeing any improvements? not in my lifetime I think you bunch thieving mother fluffers.

Nick.

Dick Turpin is alive and running Southeastern.

So the fare rises for January are published in the press today. Last year the average rise for the commuter was 1.2% except for Southeastern which managed to get away with 8%.
The reason for this bigger than national average rise, was that we were paying for the new fast train service. OK now it’s up and running why are we still paying extra for it? Should it not be paying for itself?
Another thing the new line which was built for the train has been sold off to some Canadian consortium.
Where is my cut then? Huuu I part paid for it I was one of the original backers like one of the Dragons I want my cut… I knew I should have said “im out” when they put the fares up.

So what sort of rise are they going to give us this year 8% maybe 9% to really give me some pain? No they are going big this time they are looking at 12.7% are they taking the piss. There is always news about a double dip recession well I believe Southeastern are trying their best to create it in my household.

I think these prices are being hiked to pay for the lack of people on the high speed train. The HST has been shortened by 3 carriages because there are not as many people on it as Southeastern thought and who can blame them. I don’t use it as I feel like I am being ripped of already without paying an extra £1,000 per year + tube ride for the privilege.

The problem is what can you do about it. I am not using the trains for pleasure rides I am using it to get to work. The other option is to drive which at the cost of travel for me going to be over £100 per week it is looking to be the cheaper option even with my planet killer car and the price of petrol. I this what you want in these times of green-ey-ness-ness? Is me to kill baby seals with my car, because that is what I am considering doing Southeastern and it’s your fault.

Mojave Desert

Did you know that Britain has been as dry as the Mojave Desert?
No well it’s the only explanation that I can think of as to why Southeastern have been so consistently shite this week.
The first rains in a thousand years have completely codsed up the rail system.
It is Thursday any I have not yet this week been on a train that isn’t late.
On Wednesday they even cancelled the morning train due to the biblical floods we have been having. Or that they could be bothered why give a service when you have a monopoly that is subsidised and well you customers are not likely to go anywhere else.
This is England the only place damper in winter is Ireland for fecks sake.
When a Southeastern guard was asked why the trains are so bad his brilliant explanation was “well it is winter” is it? That crept up on us I didn’t see that coming. Did we have this winter thing last year?

This week we were warned by some government committee that the trains in 2014 are going to be overcrowded and provide a terrible service. I think southeastern are ahead of their time. It’s the first target they have beaten without fudging the figures.
Maybe they should change the company tagline to something like.
“Don’t wait until 2014 for your crap rail service. Travel with Southeastern and get it now.”
Guess what this mornings train in was over 10 minutes late so only one more train to make a perfect score for the week.

This morning's rant is brought to you by the letter R for "retards".

It is not strictly a Southeastern problem as its about the retards at London bridge. But I am willing to blame them as it's like wearing a Nazi uniform they are all tarred with the same brush.

When my train got to London bridge the announcer said "I am sorry but a passenger has been taken ill and this train will be stuck here for a while. if you want to make alternate arrangements to get to Cannon Street I suggest you do." So I get my coat and bag and get off.
At this point there was a train on the other platform with its doors open. Standing by this train was a fucktard in his bright yellow tabard blowing his whistle. He cannot be blowing it for the train I have just got off can he. I point at him "this one or that one?" he just blows his whistle and behind me the doors on the train shut and it moves off. "What The F&*k" it was the fastest I have seen a train leave a platform just because I was not on it.
When questioned the fucktard says I was blowing my whistle I couldn't be any clearer. Well you might have started by not standing next to another train with its doors open. Or maybe even used that white and black paddle you wave around like a fly swatter, to point at the leaving train. I am astounded by the quality of customer service and the staff that are in the employee of the railways.
Rant over.

Nick.

Power of attraction

So last night I saw the power of attraction in work. Andy my train buddy and me were stuck in London trying to get home when all the trains were cancelled from Cannon Street. At Cannon Street I knew things were going to go bad when I got close to the station its was very crowded on the streets and there were flashing blues lights of two police cars sitting outside.
No one was being allowed inside the station people were starting to spill out onto the street, there was a lonely guard standing there telling people they were not coming in. No other info as to why all the trains were cancelled the boards had no info just a single train that was classed as on time even though it was 10 minutes past when it should have arrived. I think the coppers were there to stop it kicking off.
I still haven’t found out what happened! Anyone got any ideas, was it because the builders from the commonwealth games have taken over running the railway? I think it might do a better job than the muppets who run it now.
So we took a trip on the hell express or underground as its known, which didn’t go smoothly first tube was a circle line until we got on it then it changed to going to Barking only. Jump off wait for next etc. Andy was grumbling with me by this point about how crap it all is etc. We finally got to St Pancras went into the MS shop there to get a beer to take on the train. The guard would not let us on the train with our ticket he told us we need to get an upgrade Buggers. No free travel just because the service is useless. I bet you are wondering where the power of attraction is coming in well, Andy was muttering about how crap everything is. At this point he opened his can of beer and it was off Nightmare!!! Now if he could just attract the lottery numbers as well as he attracted the crap beer he would be onto a winner.

Nick.

Customer satisfaction 2

I managed to get a customer satisfaction survey on my train in this morning. So my paranoia was unjustified and SouthEastern are not watching me, unless they read my blog and realised I was on to them. I will keep my eye on any of the SouthEastern Stasi (revenue enforcement officers to give them their official name) who watch me for too long. If I disappear on the way to work would someone please come looking for me.

Anyway I had these 4 sheets of A4 stapled together in front of me. This is it I am going to tell you MoFo's what I really think of you!. A quick flit through revealed that there was nowhere to leave other comments it was just a multiple choice. I rummaged through my bag for a pen and began. I only had a blue pen with me not very subversive, so I am now packing a red pen in my bag just in case I get another survey, I will show you!.

The usual of little relevance questions followed "blah blah train cleanliness" blah helpfulness of staff, how safe do you feel" etc. But there was this gem which had me laughing at SouthEastern's delusional state. "Thinking of any journeys where there has been disruption. How do you feel SouthEastern solved the problem. " they had the usual options "very well" "not very" etc but these best option was. "No disruptions encountered" are you friggin joking is this option for people travelling for the first time without their mum for one stop on a off peak train, that's the only way you might travel on SouthEastern without any disruption.

Nick.

Customer Satisfaction

I don't know if I am paranoid or Southeastern are just watching me, or some other higher government agency that reports on people who cause and spread the word of dissatisfaction, But yesterday when I was working from home those buggers at Southeastern came round with a customer satisfaction survey.

My travel buddy Andy was on the rain and had a big red pen to write down his dissatisfaction about the cost, the time keeping and (so bad they are worth repeating) the cost and time keeping.
I am upset that I didn't get my chance to vent on one of their papers. So I thought they are a progressive company they will have an online version on the web site. Will they foock...

But I did find this little gem of info on the site.
On Wednesday 15 September 2060 services were scheduled to operate of which 2040 ran.
We aim to run all our trains on time, however there are times when this isn't possible. On this day 96% of services ran within 5 minutes of schedule.

So when they are creating the statistics they don't massage the figures much but they also do not include the cancelled trains in the on time statistics. Worthy of a government poll those figures are.

Late again.

The trains were over 15 minutes late this morning.
I am thinking about adding all the time up that they are late and working out how many hours of my life are stolen by Southeastern.
But I think if I do I might just go a bit postal and go on a rampage though the head office.

The reason the train was late was due to a tree on the line at Tonbridge, a signal failure in the Hither Green area and congestion at London bridge.
I think the real reason was that it rained a little bit this morning.

The Muppet announcer at Cannon street had a field day he was so excited relaying all the problems that he forgot to mention that we "should not leave any luggage unattended on the train or platform" or "please have your travel cards ready for inspection at the gate line" like any of the half wits sitting on the gates ever look at your tickets.
They just stand there looking like someone you would expect to see in a freak show audition queue doing their best to ignore you if the gate doesn't accept your tickets.

I still think I will start to top up the time that is wasted on the train. I will see how we go for a month, if it makes me cry I might stop.

The magnetic power of bridges.

I managed to make my early train home on Monday and guess what it was late. By only 15 minutes which is not bad really I mean that only adds up to 2 and 1/2 hours a week extra on the train if they keep this up.

Then amazingly I managed to make my early train on Tuesday I thought that's well it won't be late this time not with southeasterns 98% trains on time success rate. But noooo the train left London Bridge got up to a grand speed of about 20 miles an hour then slowed down to about 5 and didn't get any faster.
I was lucky enough to be standing (you cannot get a seat if you don't get to the train 20 minutes before it goes) in the aisle to listen to the guard ring the driver and ask what was going on.
The train was running on a caution (whatever that means maybe it had been bad before and was close to getting a train ASBO).
Then after another agonising 10 minutes to travel 2 miles he gets on the blower and talks to the driver again.
The excuse broadcast to the train was that someone has hit a bridge. I don't know if he made it up or its true but I must have heard the same excuse at least 12 times in the last 4 years.
So my questions are:
What kind of magnetic materials are they using that draw in cars that would normally manage to drive through the big gap in the middle?
Do the drivers of trains really get a message from the signal men/women or do they just have a little book of excuses that they use?
Where do southeastern get there statistics from? Do they use the Sex Panther (Anchorman film) statistics of "They've done studies, you know. 60% of the time it works, every time."

Not a rant at Southeastern per say

Not a rant at Southeastern per say, but still a rant about trains well train stations.
I catch my home train from Cannon Street as a lot of other sad commuters do we shuffle into the station just wanting to be out of London and back to our cosy happy existence somewhere else in the commuter belt.
Some of us cut it a bit fine to get the train due to having a job that means you get looked at funny if you leave at the correct pack up leg it time. (I am sure I am not the only one in this position, but I digress.)
You have 30 seconds to get through the station navigate the 2 open barriers out of 10 to get to your savour of a train home.
So in their infinite wisdom what do you think they do at Cannon Street.
At the top of the stairs right in front of the barriers they have mounted screens to tell you what platform to get.
Everyone who is not sure what platform to run to stands there looking up in the air as if the spaceship from V is hovering over London. Not something you want to navigate when you are in a hurry I can tell you.
Another sarcastic "well done" to the bright sparks who run the rail industry in this country.
Just makes you wonder what happened to common sense? anyone seen it laying around or found it stuck down the back of their sofa.

Shock horror train in on time scandal.

Last week Southeastern managed to get me into town late on Monday to Thursday on average 20 minutes each time so that's 1hour 20 minutes that I have to make up at work.
As am not a civil servant I cannot just blame it on the trains and leave on time. I have to make up the hours.
So that is four out of five trains late in one week and according to punctuality figures South-eastern hit 98% on time trains.
So I should not have another delay for the rest of the year at least. According to their figures.
Unless they use some dodgy way of making the statistics up. I don't believe that South-eastern is the kind of company that would intentionally pull the wool over its customers eyes.
I want to know how they get these figures anyone I talk to is delayed at least once a week. so how can they possibly be that good.
As Vic Reeves once said "98% of statistics are made up on the spot"

Tuesdays

So after yesterdays train sit-in just outside London Bridge. I thought today would be fine, but no.
We got to London bridge 10 minutes late, well I say got to, not actually at the station itself just outside. Waiting for another 5 minutes before getting to the station.
The conductor told us that we "were delayed due to catching multiple points of congestion on the inbound journey" what kind of double speak crap is that. We got stuck behind a slower train that's it nothing special.
In fact I would prefer it if the conductor spoke like the company feels. You know in a really slow single tone voice "we are delayed as its all shit" "but what you going to do we have you by the short and curlys" Southeastern fail again.

Mondays again

First of I would like to apologise for my last blog on rereading it I rambled on a bit. That is what happens when I don't write my thoughts down in one big lump I lose track of where I was and seem to lose the plot a bit.
Anyway this morning I took the later train to London manly because I couldn't get up, it is Monday after all.
The train arrived at London bridge on time ish (what's 5 minutes when you are Southeastern that isn't late). We sat there for about another 5-7 minutes without a word. I was just contemplating getting off and walking when the train moved.
Ok I thought only about 10 minutes in total late not bad for a Monday on Southeastern failway.
But no we moved just to the end of the platform at London bridge and stopped. Only after sitting there for another 5 minutes did they say "sorry for the delay this is due to congestion at Cannon Street" WTF, we then sat for another 10 minutes.
They must have know before we moved off the platform that we were not going anywhere. So if they had announced at London bridge I would have got off there and hoofed it across the bridge in the sun.
But that would require just a smidgen of organisation and communication that Southeastern completely lack. I just would like the simplest things to be possible e.g. train on time if not on time, why and what they are going to do about it.
I do not care if I feel comfortable using the station late at night or if the staff are well dressed etc as a survey they passed around asked. I just want some kind of service for my extortionate season ticket.
So I finally arrived at Cannon street 20 odd minutes late just a bit annoyed only to be greeted by the sound of the Cannon street cretin announcer telling me the train was late due to congestion in the London bridge area double WTF!! was I stuck in some kind of train station Bermuda triangle is it still Monday 12/07/2010 ? have I lost 20 years was that a world war two fighter pilot sitting next to me?
So Southeastern set the bar of failure very low but again have managed to slip in under it again.

Mondays

So Southeastern have surpassed themselves to create a truly crap day of travel for me on Monday.
First off I had to buy a ticket for the week as I wasn't going to use a full month up there was a bit of a queue.
I thought I will use the ticket machine. Wrong that machine is so complicated that I lost my rag with it pretty quickly. If you want a day ticket no problem but a weekly you have to go through 10 steps only to be told there is no valid ticket for the area you selected. Sod it I will get in the queue. So I queue up with the rest of the poor souls who will have their wallet fleeced any second and buy my ticket.
I rush to the platform thinking I might just make it. As I run up the steps I cannot see the train WTF it should still be here but it's not. The just the train is half the size it usually is. I didn't get on that the trains are sweaty and crowded enough without it being half the size.
So i sat back in the cafe thing on the platform had my tea and waited for the next train. That will get me in on time if I hurry and it is on time. Guess what that didn't happen. 20 minutes late into Cannon street due to signalling problems. So got into work late but as everyone else commutes most were late anyway.

So I was about to leave when my mate Andy rang me to say don't bother coming to Cannon Street is closed but he didn't know why. Everyone was just stuck outside filling up the street and wondering what was going on. You have to love the communication from the rail companies. He wandered off to London Bridge to try his luck there. I had a look on the nationalrail.co.uk website and found that Cannon Street was closed due to a fire. How can a website be more up-to-date than the station itself.
I am pretty sure that the web site is an easily measurable way to inform without really doing it.
So the managers can say "well the trains were all ballsed up but the website told people within 2 seconds" like that is any help when you are standing outside the station wondering what the F%^k is going on, tossers.
I left work a bit later no point in rushing to the station to stand around I thought give them a hour to sort it out. I got to Cannon street and it was still closed people still just standing outside not a message on any board anywhere no staff visible we were just left to stand around. I was just about to slope off to London bridge muttering mother f%^kers not so quietly under my breath. When they opened the gates and everyone rushed in like there was a sale of iphone 4's.
I managed to barge my way in knocking nuns and old ladies over as I went to fin my train was at the platform already.
Result I thought its not as bad as it could be. I got on sat down and waited. In the heat (summer time its either minus 10 or + 30 sometimes even in the same carriage ). I was sitting there reading the paper when the driver announced "would the guard please contact the driver" never a good sign that. so 10 minutes past the leaving time of the train we were still sitting there. when the driver said the guard should be here soon he has been stuck at cannon street. Why oh why do we need a guard anyway, the doors shut on their own you either make it on the train or not the driver can stick his head out to make sure no muppets are stuck in the doors. Anyway the guard took 15 minutes to make it so we left late and got to Ashford even later.
SouthEastern fail again.

not really southeastern's fault

So I cannot really blame South Eastern for this little rant but its all part of the lovely rail system.
Last night I left the office a bit late and went to Cannon Street. Looked at the main board platform 7 for Ashford no problem got a minute no rush. Get to platform 7 the board said listen for announcements nothing about Ashford.
At this point 40 seconds to go so still no real rush. I thought I would ask one of the helpful train staff (can you see the sarcasm in print I am never sure). Me "is this the train to Ashford" moron in hi vis jacket at gate "yes mate you better hurry". I stick my ticket in the gate and run to the first carriage with open doors and jump on.
Train leaves at this point the scrolling message on the train starts to scroll. Calling at London bridge, "no problem" Rochester, Chatham "crap" ending up at Ramsgate "lying mo fo!".
So I had to jump off at London bridge and wait there for the real train to Ashford.
Like I say not Strictly South Eastern fault but still added to my already crap expensive journey home.

Not late (well only a little bit) just uncomfortable

So my train this morning was only 2 minutes late. But that was not my bugbear this morning. They must be wearing me down. No my problem with the train this morning is that it had square wheels. I am not joking it was the most uncomfortable journey I have had in a long time. I usually sit there with my cup of morning wake me up tea resting on the window but that jumped off to the floor as soon as we left Ashford. Making a nice spill on the floor but thankfully missing me. Now I know why the trains look so stained.
I sat there bouncing up and down trying my best to do the Sudoku filling in the squares I don't really know if I did it correctly as I couldn't read my own hand writing due to the pogo-ing train when I finished. So I moved onto my book. The third in the millennium series by Stieg Larsson girl who kicks arse or something (good book but don't expect any more the author only went and died). I gave up trying to read that as it was like I had contracted Parkinson's .
So to sum up the fair is extortionate the trains are 99% late but 98% on time if you use south eastern's scoring system, the seats are uncomfortable and built for people 5 foot and under and now they bounce all the way to London. SouthEastern fail.

if I don't qualify for the olympics its southeasterns fault

So Thursday night I left work at the crack of 5:30 and put a little jog on to get to Cannon Street for the 5:45. I had a cunning plan get home put my trainers on and go for a little jog.
All part of my Olympic training schedule, a quick little 3 odd miles before dinner. But the best laid plans of mice and me can always be completely cocked up by public transport.
The train got to just outside Grove Park and stopped. Broken signals were the cause, which the southeastern guard was at pains to point out was not southeasterns fault. We don't maintain the tracks we just use them.
Thank god we have someone like Bob Crow to make sure the tracks are kept to the highest standard and no useless dead weight gets shed from the well organized and run railtrak.

Sneeky

So last week was a week without any real delays to speak of.
Same for most of this week except today 10 minutes late into Cannon Street "Due to congestion" Someone brought their own train again..
But then I looked back at my times arriving home last week and this week and realised that although it was only a few minutes here and there if you add it up you are looking at least 15 extra minutes of my life being snatched away by Southeastern per week.
It is amazing that even after they introduced the new timetable in the winter that added a extra 10 minutes to every journey they still manage to constantly fail to meet it.
It is a perfect case of Parkinson's Law "Work expands as to fill the time available for its completion". http://www.berglas.org/Articles/parkinsons_law.pdf worth a read for all you cynics out there

So to counter this the next timetable from Southcrapyeastern should chop of 20 minutes on every journey they the trains would be late but inside the original times.
It won't stop me complaining but it will give me back 15 minutes of my life a week.

bloody hell I would like one week where the trains arn't delayed......

So this morning my train was 25 minutes late how about that.
They might as well have cancelled the bugger it was so close to the later train.
I get on the late thing after freezing my a$%e off waiting around at the station, only to find the carriage I got into has no heating.
I thought I was just so cold to the bone that I wasn't feeling it at first.
I was sitting there waiting for the frost bite to set in but thankfully the apologetic guard announced that he was sorry about the delay and that the heating didn't work in carriage 8 and he was about to commit Seppuku (Ritual Suicide) at the front of the train due to the shame of southeastern failing to provide a service again with his ticket punch if we want to watch.
I think the last bit was just in my mind as he was apologising again and again on the way up.
So I trundle off to the next carriage to sit down with my metro and watch the chaos commence. Of course by the time the train got 3 stops the heated carriage was full to bursting. I think the cold one would have been fine by now with all the compressed body heat.
So more of my life stolen by southeastern and their shoddy service.
I recommend signing this if you travel on southeastern http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/SETrainservices/

Late in

So 15 minutes late this morning.
According to the train due to congestion in the London bridge area.
But it was really due to overrunning engineering works at the weekend causing the congestion in the London Bridge area.
Not sure if this was meant to be a blatant lie or just a stretching of the truth.
I think they should pay the people that work on the train infrastructure per job not per hour. That way it would be in there interest to get it finished on Sunday and get home early for the same pay than to plod along let the work overrun and get paid overtime.
The aggravating part is that you can almost see your stop you are just sitting there waiting to get onto the platform.
Luckily for me I am so bad a Sudoku that I had time to finish the tough one in the metro.

A questionnaire

So this morning on my train in I was given a questionnaire about the southeastern service.
they gave on to me! did they not see the look in my eyes as they were handing them out.
I thought great let them know what I think of them, its 4 pages it must have a page dedicated to the shoddy time keeping of the service.
Nope endless questions about politeness of the staff how well they were turned out, did I feel safe travelling on the train.
Only two multiple choice questions about the punctuality of the train. No box to put comments in either. So I wrote at the end of the page it should have a comments section like any good questionnaire.
To be honest I don't really care about how well the staff are turned out just that my train journey is as quick and punctual as possible.
The main part of satisfaction with a service is does it deliver on the basics then deliver more that set it apart from other services.
So Southeastern get the basics right then I will worry about whether the staff looked nice and happy.

Another feather in the cap of crap southeastern.

So I am only updating this blog when southeastern make me late. Its midweek and this is my second entry. Not even 50% of my journeys have been successful.
You better pull it out of the bag for the second part of the week southeastern.
We were delayed today due to a slower train in front of us, so that I can understand a bit I suppose its not like it can pull over and let us pass.
But to add insult to injury, when we get to Ashford the train sits outside the station for 10 minutes waiting. I can see my home let me off please….
When you look around you can see the other commuters dying a little when you look into their eyes. So I think I might start keeping a time log of how much longer I spend on the train compared to the southeastern timetable which I think is really a work of fiction by Terry Pratchett.

Already

so on day one of my blog southeastern have done it again.
The earlier train that I do not usually get unless I run to the station, has been cancelled. I had a bonus because I didn't run today.
But it means the train is already packed and we haven't called at London Bridge yet.
Just another well done for a terrible service southeastern

Cunning Plan

Monday 22nd Feb first day of the week the train was late 5 minutes into Cannon Street today.
The great excuse was congestion in the London bridge area. What did someone think this morning I will take my own train in. Which throws the whole planning out. where did these extra trains that cause congestion come from?

So talking to a work college Richard he told me of a cunning plan. When the train is late and the guard comes round on the train to check tickets. Don't show him your ticket just look at him and then you watch. When is repeats "tickets please" say "well you can wait (XX insert late running of train here) minutes like I have to" and go back to reading your paper, doing Sudoku or whatever you are doing. Repeat until he goes away or it escalates to the point of violence.

My journey

So I commute everyday into London from Ashford.


Its a fair old journey but like thousands of others I do it to keep a roof over my head.

For the pleasure of being held captive by southeastern I have to part with nearly £400 a month.

You might ask “for that kind of money he must have a great service” well nearly. I have a train that turns up unless its snowing or a bit wet or just too hot. Every now and then it manages to keep to the timetable. Even though the timetable has had 10 minutes of slack slipped into it as a winter timetable they still find it hard to hit that target.

I manage to get a seat on the way to work as I am one of the first stops. I always feel sorry for the people that get on at the stops past Tonbridge it’s a gamble if they get a seat. Coming home I have to stand for at least the first 3 stops not a problem until you are recovering from a broken foot. Still shouldn’t complain. Oh no hang on yeah complain vent spleen and bitch that’s what I set this blog up to do.

There will be more.