A Railway Rant

Robbie has been really struggling mobility wise recently, in fact at the end of last week he was so bad that he simply couldn't make it to work and he had to work from home. This week it has been a real struggle for him but he has got himself to work. At times like this he has to plan his journey even more carefully than usual, making sure that he travels on a train that gives him more leg room and planning his return journey so that it works well with his bus connections and does not involve an excessive amount of standing around in the the cold. 


Yesterday his train home was running on time, but it was delayed at Rugby to allow a freight train that was running late to go ahead of the passenger train. This caused great inconvenience to the passengers as the train arrived at Northampton 12 minutes late. Meaning that Robbie missed his bus - and at that time in the evening buses are not very frequent. He was forced to walk to the bus station, a long walk when you are in pain, all up hill, and just to make matters worse it was freezing cold and raining heavily. By this time he had missed his connecting bus too, so he had a long cold wait at the bus station. It was passed 9.30pm when he eventually got home, and by then he was in agony.


Unfortunately this issue of a passenger train being delayed at Rugby in favour of a late freight train is a frequent problem for passengers. Robbie expressed his frustration (rather mildly in the circumstances) on facebook. He was met with a barrage of criticism from one person who works for a company which until now I have trusted and respected. Among his various unhelpful comments was a suggestion that Robbie should just put up with it and that he detested passengers claiming compensation because it takes money out of the railways. He also said 'thats the joy of public transport' and 'if you don't like it get a car' I was staggered by his attitude, it makes me wonder how many other people think like that. It certainly makes me wonder if the company he works for shares his lack of respect for passengers! Passengers have paid for a service and they should complain when things go wrong, especially if the same problem happens often. It is the only way to make rail operators understand how much inconvenience it causes and hopefully this in turn will lead to better service. It really isn't about compensation, nothing could compensate for such a miserable end to Robbie's day. If a train is delayed by a tragedy or by problems arising from bad weather that's one thing, and most passengers would be understanding about that, but to deliberately delay a passenger train that was running on time to accommodate a late running freight train has to be wrong. 


I understand that the railway has many customers and freight companies need to make a living too, but whatever the rules say, it is not unreasonable for passengers to expect their trains to be punctual and to expect that consideration will be given to their needs.