When New Labour swept to power, a certain blubber-mouth boasted we would have 'An integrated transport system'. Of course I am talking about John 'Judge me on my achievements' Prescott here and he is known for the odd word gaff - perhaps he meant 'disintegrated transport system'?
Trains - Don't You Just Love Them
OK, so you detect I have had a bad experience lately and that's true. I was one of those unfortunates who swept up to Preston yesterday having paid £195 (single) for a First Class Ticket to do some work. Not only was the power not available, the train some 45 minutes late and the 'breakfast' a sumptuous mixture of dried leather and glutinous Stilton between dry bread slices that tasted like a baby's nappy but I was comforted by the two people on the next table who bragged they always buy second class and sit in first because even if challenged they pretend to be foreign. Having arrived suitably late and angry so missing my connecting transport, I got to my meeting late and literally cheesed off.
No worries, I thought, the relaxing journey back, a snip at £76 (single) would ensure I arrived home content and unstressed as a celebrity in a rail advert. Not quite. The Pendalino ran out of juice at Milton Keynes, as had all other trains. I had been served exactly the same sandwich (probably re-packaged from the morning trip), a banana and a drink. At least the power worked - until we got to Milton Keynes, that is. It turned out that desperately close to my home, power line failure meant all trains had ground to a halt somewhere between North Wembley and Hemel Hempstead and we were stuck in the land of Concrete Cows.
Milton Keynes - The New Utopia
Maybe John Maynard Keynes was angry I had taken his name in vain recently and blighted me from beyond the grave but I was stuck in the town sharing his name - surely no coincidence when it comes to failed theories. They say that when the town planners were designing the layout for the New Town, they used the map as a table cloth and so wherever they put their tea cups down, Irish Navvis built a roundabout. It has a ring of truth to the story.
Having spent about an hour on the rapidly cooling train, I decided to seek advice and found helpful station staff shrugging their shoulders in a display of customer service worthy of Fawlty Towers. Having got to the message boards it became clear there were delays. After a further hour in the freezing station it became apparent that the trains were not going to move again and other transport would be laid on for the fairly quiet bunch of 200 or so commuters trapped in the Neverland that is Milton Keynes. Fortunately, I managed to get a family member to drive up to get me and my SAS survival training paid dividends when I found a nearby Indian Restaurant which allowed me to sit in their waiting area sipping a Cobra while I waited. When I left, still 200 slightly frozen commuters anxiously awaited their laid-on buses in the positively balmy temperature of minus 6 Centigrade.
Jokers Galore
Of course, it's not worth trying to claim back a penny as I haven't the energy or life expectancy to get an answer from the Complaints Dept at Virgin, so that's a total of £271 for a round trip of total dissatisfaction. And before you say it, Second Class would not have been much cheaper.
Tomorrow, as I often do, I will travel to London for £22.50 return plus £5.80 parking (plus annual price hikes) and have the privilege to stand for the 20 or so mile trip. Off to jail should I wait until 9.30am and get an off peak ticket and then travel back at the wrong time, even though there is no price option to do that. You get fined as you walk out at St Albans Station for the criminal you are.
Quite what makes any Government Minister think we are going to get people out of cars and into Public Transport at that level of price and service is beyond me. As Richard Branson laughs all the way to the Bank on his extortionate prices (they offered me a chance to go on an earlier train for a mere £120 extra one way) and the supposed 6% hike in prices are scorned on the nice-earning green belt servicing lines, and don't forget the car parks ramming up astronomically prices on pieces of land they pay peppercorn rents on, it turns out the commuting public are the jokers as we put up with it.
We will never solve the issues of carbon emissions and congestion this way. We have to somehow provide public transport at affordable prices and a good service, and join it all up. It can be done as others do it. I recently travelled from Verona to Milan - fully 220km - on a decent train, with a seat, in rush hour and all for €11.70. It was blissfully only 3 minutes late and arrived at one of the most magnificent buildings in Italy - Milan Central Station - complete with Christmas Market outside.
But we Brits love a moan and where would be without the railway, eh?
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