Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Chiltern failways

It's standing room only - yet again - on the Chiltern Trains service to London. What happened to this railway? A few years ago it was the best way from Birmingham to London. Now it's overcrowded, expensive and unreliable. 

Today I tried to park at Warwick Parkway's new car park and almost crashed the car because they had not bothered to treat the top floor, which is open to the elements, despite the icy conditions.
 
I slipped across the top floor to the stairs lucky and thankful I didn't come a cropper and then had to pay £101.50 for a return ticket to Marylebone. That's because the train left before 9am. About five minutes before. But it stopped at Leamington Spa, we were all kicked off and told to wait for the next (cheaper, overcrowded) train. 

So here we all are, crammed in like sardines and ripped off to boot. Strangely there is no ticket collector. No doubt they will blame staff shortages but the truth is they don't have the courage to face carriages- full of unhappy passengers.

No comments: