Normal Service has been Resumed

After our trip to the Warley Model Railway Exhibition we went to Birmingham New Street and caught a Cross Country Service to York. I always enjoy travelling on Cross Country services despite their inability to make a drinkable cup of tea, but when we joined the train I was shocked by the state of the first class coach. I have never seen such mess, there were dirty cups, food wrappings and crumpled newspaper everywhere. The were not many people in first class, but it was impossible for us to find a seat with a clean table. Robbie put down his bags and rucksack and morphed into a tornado as he whisked through the carriage cleaning each table, and carrying all the rubbish to the bin in the vestibule. Before long first class was restored to order and Robbie took his seat. The lady in the seat behind was most impressed and asked why he did it. He told her that he was proud of working for Cross Country and he hoped that any member of staff would pitch in to help if they saw a mess. He didn't tell her that the train manager had watched him open mouthed as he cleaned the carriage, he didn't even say thank you.


I enjoyed the journey, but I struggled to stay awake the early start and the busy morning at Warley were catching up on me. I tried to read my new book about the railways around Newquay but my eyes kept closing and I couldn't concentrate. I decided to look out of the window instead, even a brief stop at Sheffield station brings back many happy memories of my time there. It was a very long time ago but I loved living there. 


As we moved on towards Doncaster the 'trolley dolly' put in an appearance. The first people that she came to asked her for a tea and a coffee and she rudely told them that she was not doing complementary drinks she was only doing the retail trolley. She spoke to them as if they were naughty children. When she got to the couple sitting behind us they asked for a tea and a coffee, again she said that she wasn't doing complementary drinks. The man said that they were so desperate for a drink that they didn't mind paying, but she pushed the trolley away without further comment. In due course she came back and provided complementary drinks for those that wanted them, but at best her attitude was graceless and she made the people who wanted a drink so badly wait until last. Maybe she'd had a bad day, but it left me feeling disappointed because most Cross Country staff are not like that, they are very good and she had let them down. 

Photo by David McCormick

I enjoyed spending time at York station, we went to have a coffee and watch the world go by at the old signal box. Or to be more exact we watched the trains go by, Robbie was so busy jotting down information that he almost forgot to drink his coffee! Our journey back couldn't have been more different, the train manager was very good at his job and the Retail Service Manager was exceptional.
By the time we got back to Northampton I just wanted to curl up and go to sleep, but we'd had a lovely day.

Normal Service is Resumed

A series of problems have conspired to keep me from writing the blog for almost two weeks. The first was lack of internet access courtesy of AOL, but more of that later. We had a very stressful few days before we finally got back online, but then I was ill. I don't know exactly what was wrong, no doubt the doctor would say it was a 'virus' but whatever it was I felt absolutely dreadful and I spent several days in bed. I am feeling better but I hope nobody else gets it because it really wiped me out.

On a Thursday morning two weeks ago our internet connection failed at about 8am. It seemed that no internet signal was reaching the router but our telephone was working perfectly, so I wondered if there was a problem with our cables. I popped out to buy new cables but when I tried them there was still no signal, I even tried a different router but still there was nothing. I got the line checked and there was nothing wrong with the line, so there was no alternative we had to ring AOL. Robbie rang them first, but he had to give up on the call after half an hour because the man would not deviate from his script and was no help whatsoever. I hate having to talk to call centres in foreign countries at the best of times, but AOL have taken poor service to an all time low. 


Anyway after over two hours of being passed from one unhelpful person to the next totally useless person I was reduced to tears of frustration. Not one of them spoke good enough English to understand me and I had extreme difficulty understanding them. To make matters worse they kept putting me on hold and playing dreadful music down the phone. My blood pressure must have been off the scale! They couldn't solve my problem, they didn't even seem to care about it. At one point they told Robbie that they could not check our internet signal because their equipment was broken and they had no idea when it would be working again! I told them that I had suffered enough and I wanted to leave AOL - NOW!! They treated me with total contempt and disconnected my call, but after calling back and queueing for an eternity they finally gave us the mac code needed to transfer to another provider.


We now have a better and faster internet service at less than half the price charged by AOL and as an added bonus  their call centre staff speak and understand English! So normal service has been resumed and I will be able to bring the blog up to date.