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Great North East Railways has seen me up and down the east coast very nicely for years. A few months ago, the service was taken over by National Express. A black day for travellers, it turns out.
I arrive six minutes before my departure on Friday. No sign of my train on the board. At the gate, I ask staff where the Newcastle train goes from. "Dunno, try the office," they say. Hurtle back. Snaking queues. Race to board - only the following service. "You'll have to get that one," says barrier-man.
At first I thought it was the wrong train - dingy, cheap hard seats: surely commuter rolling stock that's seen better days. The inspector approached, looked at the ticket and said it wasn't valid for that service. "That'll be another £124.50." A faint feeling descended. He "begged to differ" that the chaos at the station was the source of the problem. I begged to differ about paying him more than £200 when I had booked early and arrived on time.
Could it get any worse? It did. The Saturday return train was even grimier than the first, litter strewn and filled with drunken, fighting men returning from the rugby. Extreme drinking on trains has gone unchallenged for so long that we take for granted what a threatening and miserable experience it is. Staggering, jeering yobs lurched up and down hurling random abuse. Two British Transport Police wandered up and down, to no effect. I really would not have wanted any child to hear and see the Hogarthian misery of it all.
Bucketloads of alcohol were bought. Landlords are penalised for selling drink to the intoxicated - why did National Express's bar staff not stop serving this lot? Indeed, as many were drunk to start with, why were they allowed to travel?
This line is the vital strategic connecting line between Scotland, the North-East and the South. The operator should not get away with treating its passengers with a mixture of greedy highhandedness and neglect.
Richard Bowker, who runs such a sorry show, should be deeply ashamed. He tells me: "We aim for the highest standards of customer service.We inherited a business at the bottom of the reliability league tables. We have a track record of transforming underperforming railways."
Well, you could have fooled me, Mr Bowker. And along with a lot of other people who try to bridge the North-South divide, I'd love to know what you intend to do about it.
Reader views (5)
National Express have destroyed the East Coast mainline in just three months. They've given passengers free wi-fi, but they've ruined everything else. Somehow they've absconded with the new-ish trains that were previously on the route and have introduced decades-old rolling stock. They routinely cancel services (especially in the mornings) leaving you with the cumbersome refunds process and missed meetings in London. And, worst of all, they've decimated the fare structure put in place by GNER.
You simply can't get cheap tickets any more by booking ahead. Under GNER there was a fair selection of reduced-price singles that would make it easy to get to London and back for £50 or less. Now you have virtually no alternative to a £90 saver return, which itself comes with ludicrous conditions and creates a climate of fear about whether you're on the 'right' train.
At a time when there's so much publicity about the environmental problems of air travel and its relentless expansion, we're making it harder and harder for ordinary people to travel by train. When will this become a political issue?
- Eric Nesbitt, York, UK, 19/03/2008 11:34
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I am appalled at the deteriation of the East Coast Line, since National Express took over service has been sacrificed for profits yet again, and for so called league tables. My daughter travelled on Saturday morning with two under 5 children from Newark to Kings Cross. The seats were booked. My Grandson was allocated a seat on one coach and Mother and daughter were allocated a seat in another coach, where is the sense in that? On speaking to the staff she was told there was nothing they could do, and as the train was full she had to get on with it. So much for protecting our young children
The return trip was chaos with packed aisles, no seats. is safety being jeopardized for profits? what is going on? please please bring back GNER who ran a perfectly good service..
- Jenny Stables,London, Carshalton, Surrey, 19/03/2008 10:14
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Totally agree with this article - 18th March. GNER were amazing! Spent time getting the service right! My one experience of National Express is very poor.
- David Bell, London, 18/03/2008 21:38
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I bought a cottage in York in October 2000 and spent the first few weeks travelling up and down from London. I missed the Hatfield crash (the 12.10 to Leeds) by 40 minutes. The weeks that followed were absolute chaos, not helped by the crash at Selby the following February.
Forced to deal with a crisis not of their own making, GNER were superb during that period. With their headquarters in York they identified totally with the residents of the city, who were very proud of them. They maintained the utmost levels of service throughout the period under the most trying of circumstances.
Their reward was utterly shabby treatment by the Government, who dithered for years about whether to renew their franchise, at one point offering them a temporary 12 month extension when new rolling stock took three years to order. The chief ditherer - a certain Alistair Darling. I remember well the day when he finally agreed to offer them an extension only after extracting the most punitive rates of payment from them - over £1 billion - and Darling then had the brass nerve to go on the media to announce they were being offered the renewal due to their "exceptional levels of service"...
This no doubt contributed to their eventual demise, and replacement by the company whose activities have been detailed above. Doesn't it make your blood boil?
- John Polenski, Elmsford, NY, USA, 18/03/2008 17:33
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The whole privatisation fiasco is still rolling on, costing us billions, and will continue to do so until we find a new way of owning and running the railways. What about mutual ownership, as with old-style building societies, with the passengers as majority stakeholders? There is a Downing Street petition on this. Please sign it. Maybe the politicians with their fingers in their ears singing "Lalalala" to block the noise of angry passengers might sit up and take notice.
- Robert C, London, UK, 18/03/2008 13:56
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