Boards
Biggest bullshit experienced with train companies
I can take cancellations and disruption and stuff as I can understand that things you can't plan for go wrong sometimes, like people jumping in front of their stupid fucking trains, but I have to say there is so much inexplicably ridiculous shit that train companies do, and something just happened to me which pretty much tops this seemingly neverending list.
Was paying for a weekly travelcard with cash at the ticket machine as the ticket office was closed. Put in £50 in notes and £5.60 in change and was asked to touch my oyster card. Upon doing this I was told there was an error and asked to do it again. Upon doing it again, with my perfectly operable oyster card, it went ERROR ERROR and cancelled the transaction altogether, before spewing out 50p pieces into the tray. £55.60 in 50p pieces. And then, like a cherry on top, that solitary 10p piece popped out after a comedy delay of a couple of seconds. I was just stood there mouthing fuckkk offff!?! for the 30 seconds or so it was doing it for, while a selection of gormless commuters looked at me like I'd just shit in their microwave dinner.
Luckily I had a bag I could incredulously scoop them up into but if I hadn't I'd have literally been in a t-shirt and shorts with no pockets. Also if I hadn't have been so angry, I might not have summoned the bravery to tell the scrote hanging round who tried first to touch his oyster card thinking he would get a big oyster bonus, then to grab a handful of the change, to get to absolute fuck, and would have lost a load of it. I mean how stupid can you get?! Just imagine if it had been a monthly travelcard?!
I'm now gonna either have to go down the bank in the 30 mins I get for lunch to give them a big bag of 50ps to put in my account, or be stuck using 111 of the little pentagonal fuckers until sodding Christmas.
Hey, maybe if I rub the Queen's nose I can wish for re-nationalisation? Oooh satire.
What other totally stupid train company shit is there that could be so easily improved? Let's collate some ideas here and send them all a big list of suggestions.
You want to get in touch with the guy who runs an Oyster site
and he will (excitingly) investigate on your behalf.
http://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/
Yeah, I know there's better pastimes to be obsessed with, but he knows his Oyster. Just browsing his experiences and experiments with Oyster you realise what a total mess it is.
I get caught out when I cannot top up my card in a shop from 11.30pm to 6.30am every night because the TFL computer is doing it's end of day processing. So I end up paying cash fare for a night bus home. TFL IT Dept can go fuck itself.
:D
Is there CCTV footage we can watch?
So we can, er, see how infuriating this was, of course...
There would be
IF THE CAMERAS WEREN'T ALL BROKEN!
I'm starting to see the bright side now
I have found out that 50p pieces are actually hexagonal rather than pentagonal (which to be honest I probably knew anyway), and have arranged all of my new little silver friends into a collage of Boris Johnson's face which I am currently mooning while listening to Built To Spill. Turned into quite a fun evening.
Anyone fancy a game of pool sometime? I'll pay.
Um, aren't they septagonal?
Poor dan_thw, not only is his bag full of shrapnel, but it's poor counterfeit shrapnel at that.
They are in fact none of the three suggested agonals
...and are heptagonal.
I might not be able to count to seven, but I can sure as hell count to one hundred and eleven now.
You say heptagon, I say septagon
Potato Potato.
heptagonal?
poor dan_thw with his fake 50p's
Portsmouth
I was gonna type out a whole sobstory about some bullshit involving East Midlands Trains being utter cunts, but instead I'll just say this;
If you buy a ticket for a Cross Country train from their own website, they charge you £1 to collect it from a ticket machine.
If you buy a ticket for a Cross Country train from the East Coast website (or, I imagine, any other train operator site), they charge you nothing to collect it from a ticket machine.
Fuck you Cross Country. Fuck you.
If you think that's baffling
then bear in mind that there's also no booking fee if you buy the ticket from the Arriva Trains Wales website, despite the fact it's owned by the same company as Cross Country.
if you buy a ticket for a CrossCountry train via the CrossCountry Android app
you pay nothing either
Before some gluten intolerant T&Cs fetishist points out that this was my wife's fault
I'd like to make it known that said person is an inestimable bore.
This thread is very timely for me, as this very morning I dropped my wife off at the station to catch a train from Exeter to Heathrow for her flight to Sweden, only for her to call me up 5 miuntes later because the cunts wouldn't let her through without a physical print out of the e-ticket on her phone.
This meant I had to drive her at 90mph all the way across the sodding country, only for her to miss the check-in cut off by 5 minutes. It also means that a very well-paying if un-compassionate client will probably not be giving me much work any more.
Props to British Airways, however, who recognised the ticket man in Exeter as the jobsworth cunt he is and gave her a free seat on the next flight.
This definitely trumps me on the bullshitnessometer
What a bunch of bellends. I'll send you some 50ps in the post. How much is a first class stamp these days? Might glue a couple of 50ps on the envelope instead. They have the Queen's face on, should work.
Unintentional trump
We've got a problem here - You'll need 1.2 50ps glued to the front, which is it's own logistical challenge, but also keep the weight below 100g. You probably have to send me an insultingly low amount of 50ps to do this.
Christ
what was their reason for not allowing an e-ticket on a phone? Surely a printout is open to far more abuse than someone's telephone.
I dunno
marckee can probably enlighten us
No idea.
I've never used an e-ticket before. Do they have a barcode/QR code that needs to be scanned?
yeah dunno
sounds plausible though
They should be able to scan it from the phone
It would be clearer than many people's printouts anyway. Making people print stuff onto an actual piece of paper is just retarded.
i've always had to go to the ticket office to get them to print it.
i'm not sure if they are effectively 'e-tickets', i think it's just a booking confirmation.
"This one's paying out!!!"
Last week I was travelling from London to Birmingham
after just getting back from being on holiday. Flight landed early so I was at Euston station about 2 hours before my booked train and didn't fancy waiting so went and asked at the ticket office about booking a ticket for the next train home.
I'd paid £7 for my advance ticket, and asked whether that could be taken off the price of a new one for the next train. Lovely helpful Virgin trains ticket guy said of course. He then brings up the price as £34 for a new ticket and I sort of go err that's not right, I was expecting more like £15? But no, he'd wacked on a £10 'admin fee' for printing me a new ticket, thus negating any benefit from exchanging the £7 ticket, said this was non negotiable and there was no way to get a cheaper ticket!
In the end I told him to leave it, went to a ticket machine and bought a new ticket...for £16. FU Virgin trains ticket guy.
Jeez that is ridiculous
Sorry. But ;D
at the comedy 10p bit.
did you think it was a fruit machine?
First Great Western will always, ALWAYS, be the biggest shitcunts of all
when it comes to trains - and are the only company ever to turn me into one of those mentalists who write rants on FB walls:
https://www.facebook.com/FirstGreatWestern/posts/10151352100336806?notif_t=like
(Got £80 back from them for that though)
WORST Great Western
First CRAPital Connect
Cross CUNTry
First ScotFAIL
(I think they're ok. Especially compared to their supershitty FirstBus offering).
http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/social/4433772
You don't UNDERSTAND how FRUSTRATING it was
Commuting with First Great Western has convinced me that they are indeed the biggest fleet of pissclowns around
My train is 7 minutes late every day, without fail.
I feel sorry for Jo
You were very courteous and fair with her, but all your friends piling in to 'like' your response and gee you on seems a bit off. That'd be the icing on the cake if I was Jo.
If it wasn't for those likes though
It likely would have been ignored or just auto response, but the fact that it got a bit of support meant that the PR machine got turned on and they refunded me. Sad but true - and she was very nice about it all.
IF...
haha
you're totally 100% in the right, but...there's nothing like a ranty letter griping about the 7.57 slow services to Slough to make you sound like a proper fist shaking get-off-my-lawn old coot.
Yep
completely lost it. Was practically shaking at my desk typing it out. Had to edit it about 4 times to remove swears. Felt like such a clown, but it was surprisingly therapeutic.
South West Trains have been pretty special these past few weeks.
Trains running to/from Waterloo were mostly cancelled one evening due to a conbination of overrunning enginnering works / THE HEAT (wtf) / signalling problems, meaning that it was very difficult for me to get home. This was during a 5-6pm rush hour on a Monday evening during a heat wave. Luckily I left work early and got home, but if I'd missed the train I eventually got I have no idea how I'd have got home.
The heat explained
NR has spacing between rails to allow expansion in the heat. When the temperature reaches extremes, these gaps fill, & the rail can buckle. Trains have to do lower speeds in case rail has buckled, also as additional stress from the train can cause buckling. When the metal cools again it contracts, but it does not necessarily contract to where it originated, leaving the potential for gaps in the rail, which also has to be constantly monitored and managed, and causes delays required by inspections and faults. Which doesnt make it any less annoying.
I can't even imagine how I would have reacted if I got fifty quid's worth of coins back
The machine would have got the full Basil Fawlty attack with a branch routine probably.
I have a conspicuous tanty if the train has to pause in the station for 3 minutes
Me and my girlfriend have a thing in our flat (at her instruction)
whereby every bit of coinage we acquire under £1 we stick in a pot and it covers all household essentials and bills for the month.
I'd have sooner gone into hiding than rocked back home with ~£56 of 50ps in my pockets. She can hear a loose tuppence from 50 yards.
Probably a silly question but how do you pay your bills with them?
Tape the lid shut on a tupperware container filled with coppers and send it off to British Gas every month?
In my household we'd probably raise about £4.36 a month doing that
We stash all round coins except pound coins.
Raises about a tenner a month. GeOff and his lass must be pretty ascetic.
Also, I can sense his mum's loose tuppence from 50 yards.
Really?
We get about £30 a month. Guaranteed a tenner each in 20s and 50s at the absolute least.
Plus we live in London.
There's money EVERYWHERE.
Electricity is on a coin operated meter in our flat, remarkably.
Don't pay gas or council tax. All the rest tends to get Coinstarred and spent in Tesco. Or, sometimes, bagged up and cashed in at the bank.
I've pointed out to her it's an inefficient way of doing it but she claims `but you don't even notice you're saving the money!!`
and you don't even notice how much you're spending on anything.
your wife is quite, quite mad.
Wife!
Don't get him started on weddings!
:D
coin operated meter!
do you live in the sixties?
always jeering the impoverished
Works out cheaper for us.
Spent £12 on electricity last month. Cheers.
pretty big bullshit expereince this morning at piccadilly
can only assume that this baby is bringing this weather
A while back
I was travelling back from Carmarthen to Reading with work, had pre booked tickets but my meeting finished over an hour early so went and asked someone if I could get on an earlier train which he said was no problem. Changed at Cardiff, checked with the guard again it was still ok and he said yeah, no problem, so carried on towards Reading, ticket inspector came round and then told me I was on the wrong train and booted me off at Bristol Temple Meads, telling me that my right train would be along in an hour. He also collared the platform attendant and told him to make sure I didn't get on another train or something, and so he escorted me to the exit and kicked me out of the station! There is nothing at BTM so I had to mill around outside the station for an hour before getting back on the right train. Then someone was sat on my seat, and being a peak train (instead of the lovely empty off peak train I had been on earlier) I had to stand to Reading, as when I asked the guy to move he told me he was comfortable and to fuck off.
Have fun standing on a train to Reading.
imagine your little dumbstruck face while this is happening will keep me in a good mood all day
Picture the scene.
Forty or so individuals are waiting at Kentish Town station on a blustery Saturday evening in January for a northbound First Capital Connect service to St. Albans.
The seconds tick down. A fast train passes through. Then a southbound service to some god-forsaken place south of the river. The clock ticks down... two minutes to go. One minute.
*bzzzzzzzzz*
"Will passengers on platform 2 please be advised that the next northbound service calling at all stations to St Albans will now be departing from platform 4."
People glance at each other; slightly bemused looks on faces and move towards the pedestrian bridge just as the train pulls into the adjacent platform.
A lucky couple of people who were at the front of the queue make a dash for it and just arrive at the foot of the staircase as the driver presses the "close doors" button. Around three dozen others miss the train, shuffling along behind an elderly couple. The next service isn't for half an hour.
First Capital's explaination for stranding everyone? "Operational Issues".
On two separate occasions
I've been the only person waiting at Kentish Town for a train that is already late, only for them to announce that it has been cancelled, followed by a suspiciously familiar looking train to chundle through a minute later with a guilty looking driver at the helm.
This has happened to me at least three times at Elephant & Castle overground
with First Capital Connect. One time I just got there and had to forcibly hold the door open for about 30 people who had to scoot across from platform 4 to 2. The people getting on thought I was a hero, the ones already on the train that I was holding up thought I was an absolute dick. The latter might be generally right, but I am not as much of a dick as First Capital Connect.
got to the platform at Stansted last night with three minutes before the train was due to depart
And an hour wait until the next one.
I asked the guy on the barrier if he could waive their RIDICULOUS policy of requiring a ticket before boarding and let me just BUY ONE ON THE TRAIN.
He said yes, and the ticket collector on the train was very accommodating too.
Take it to the "Best service experienced with train companies" thread.
That'll be a laugh.
It'll just be a load of wistful old husks like me going `I remember when Midland Mainline used to give you free tea and coffee too... :(`
anyone who's ever given dan-thw something for free:
the guy goes round with £50 notes in his pocket.
*£55.60 in 50p pieces
and a lucky 10p piece.
Train company once did me for fare evasion
and did the whole intimidating thing of pay £70 or See U in COURT!!!1111
Plus the guard was a crushingly smug prick about it when he [dun] me and even asked if my PARENTS would be proud of seeing me GO TO COURT. I was 18 and it was really odd
Anyway I went to court, the guard (who by now was working in Newcastle) had to travel all the way down to Surrey to sit and watch me win. Case got thrown out in 10 minutes and the train company had to cough up about £600 if I remember right.
Fucking great day, that.
Excellent
Why did it get thrown out?
Not that I'm doubting your innocence of course!
They clocked me getting on a train without a ticket
(I was going to buy one on the train, as I'd seen loads of people do before)
Thing is, I was using a station pass ticket if I remember right (one that lets you go through the station to get to the road the other side) because I was in a hurry and there was a queue or something, but I pretty much thought "If you're gonna sell tickets on your trains, you sell tickets on your trains". Turned out the magistrate agreed. Bosh
Virgin Trains
Offered me £3 compensation when they delayed me for 2 hours.
Then tried to blame London Midland when I kept complaining.
Then finally after another few weeks, gave me another £3 compensation voucher.
Made me feel great about paying for a £5k+ season ticket with them, and am glad all my commuting is now tube based.
once tried to get the inspector to print off my ticket on the train
as i didn't have enough time to print it off at the machine in the station due to it being really busy/me not getting there early enough. People buy tickets on the train all the time but for some reason the inspector was giving me shit saying he couldn't accept my card - a visa debit card - so obviously complete bullshit. I think it's because i was a scruffy student. Anyway some nice lady stuck up for me and told him to stop picking on me and give me a ticket. Thanks nice lady.
Train travel related grumble
Big shout out to WH Smiths at Waterloo, for selling 500ml bottles of water for £1.80 each when it's approaching 50 degrees trackside. Announcements suggesting you should always carry a bottle on the tube in hot weather? Aye right. Doubles the fare. Stationery tossers.
i bought a bottle of water at the train station last week for £1.70
or at least i tried to, but the guy sold me a telegraph with it and it cost for the bottle AND the paper £1.20.
*scratches head*
I had the same thing with the Express once
I think it's like an embarrassment tax
Yeah but look 2 for £2.50! Only twice the price of a litre of petrol! For water!
(also, :D stationery tossers)
I've got to say this is one of my favourite stories on here for a long while.
Your misery has made me happy. Probably 60p (1x50p, 1x10p) happy.
Always found trains alright. Very few problems
BUT I'd played a gig at OBL and had to get a train to dot to dot in notts for about 10am. Woke up, no idea where I was hungover to hell and somehow made my way to the station and waited for the train...about 3 minutes after departure time the board announced the train had departed from platform 13. Everyone went FUCKING MENTAL. Must have been 100 people losing it at the guards. I just knelt on the floor and felt like I was going to die. Avoided trains ever since.
Completely got away with this one
but catching the train from Cardiff to London, we got to the last stop before the Severn Tunnel and a announcement came through that the tunnel was closed, so the train would be going the long way round and missing out a few stops, therefore anyone going to or changing at Bristol was fucked and advised to get off the train at this stop in the arse end of nowhere (ie Wales) and 'seek alternative routes'. This was quite late in the day and about half the commuters on the train had to get off and were looking pretty stressed and exhausted by it. The guy next to me was panicking about missing his connection as there was pretty much no way he was going to get home (somewhere up North) that night. Lot of people properly screwed over.
Anyway, the train finally set off again and they had another little announcement to say don't worry, they'd reopened the tunnel and everything was back to normal, sorry for the delay etc etc.
phew
Yeah I was relieved
And I imagine all the people desperately taxi-ing they're way through South Wales in a desperate bid to catch a connecting train probably thought it was quite funny when they found out.
Crikey
I would have stayed on rather than be in the arse end of nowhere anyway, then felt fucking elated that everything had gone back to plan. The buses do this to me a lot, the board will say the next bus (an every 7-8 minute service) will be 29 minutes or something ridiculous. I wait a good 10 minutes then two empty buses turn up right when rush hour should be kicking in. I suddenly feel really happy about the bus company, even though their sign is wrong and their bus is late. Maybe it is all a ruse to make people expect shit service, then when it is actually OK, they are all ecstatic.
NEVER get off the train if they say this.
they used to close brixton tube station all the time, and tell everyone to get the overground instead, as the station would be closed for 'an undisclosed time period'. cue everyone freaking out and running to the train station to get in a massive sweaty mellay (sp). cue the station opening twenty seconds later...every time.
chill out tube proffesor