East Coast issues

[rdwarr]

I was waiting at Stevenage just after 19:00 this evening and a HST called going towards Edinburgh. The platfrom staff were having problems closing some of the doors as there were at least 20 people standing in every doorway.

I watched that one boarding at King's Cross on my way over the bridge for the 18:53. It was absolute chaos and it was clear that some carriages were occupied well in advance of the train being announced. Staff were doing the best they could but there were just too many people wanting to get on.

 

[crispy1978]

The National Rail website says tickets allowed on all reasonable routes using a number of ToCs, which is pretty standard I believe.

Two questions:

1. What is defined as a reasonable route?
2. ScotRail weren't mentioned on the list of ToCs, obviously this is pretty key to getting to Inverness on the Highland Chieftain (which is over 3 hours late), is this an oversight or would ScotRail not accept the ticket? Would I need to go the Chieftain route or could I use Forth Rail Bridge?

 

[Max]

Is that train run for the benefit of customers.... or accountants? I am convinced it's the latter!

At the risk of taking the thread further off topic, I'd agree, except the industry is only following the government's instruction that "trains must run on time". If it wasn't for the incessant focus on punctuality, I am sure that the TOCs would see that holding connections would reduce their costs in delay repay!

Hull Trains' taxi bill must have been huge tonight, there were so many passengers who came off the 1903 out of Kings Cross that the Station Taxis ran out of cars! I had come from the north but, since I was in the same situation, I tagged along with the crowd and had a very interesting taxi ride towards Bridlington (via Cottingham) with a professional artist!