As an example of why people get a tad upset at season ticket rises can be seen on my own line. My season ticket will be £652 for a two stop, one change, 15 minute journey. That is up from £624 last year and c.£575 the year before. By comparison an anytime return costs £6.40. A 12 month London zones 1-6 season ticket is £5,372.00.
On the face of it that seems quite a bit for a short trundle to work. Add to this the fact that the service tends to break down on a worryingly frequent basis, for various reasons ranging from a lack of drivers through a failed units to infrastructure failure and all stations in between. Only OHLE failures are omitted and that is just because we don’t have any! Actually I am surprised the TOC doesn’t try that one to and hope no one notices!
Because of the varied failures the service is replaced by a bus at least 3 or 4 times a month. Most often this is because the units have failed in some way. The timetable is very poorly set out and seems to be designed to just miss London connections at each end particularly in the peak periods. A more cynical person may think this was done on purpose. This infuriates people and drives them away from the train. This is a line that should be busy and popular as it runs through affluent commuter territory and connects with three different TOC London services at end of the line but isn’t because of the poor timetable and service. Bear in mind that this is an almost self contained branch line with little or no conflict with other services.
However because of all the problems potential passengers take the view that the service can not be relied on and right now I agree! The replacement bus service is widely unpredictable ranging from massively early to simply not turning up at all or my own personal favourite simply missing stations out because the driver cant be bothered or doesn’t know where they are! I bet the TOC makes a decent profit on any cancelled trains as they don’t have to compensate us passengers and receive compensation from NR. Perhaps the most ironic thing about this is that a bus operator runs the trains but cant run a bus service!
The trains, when they do run, are old and in a poor internal state. The seats are basically life expired (or finished as it used to be known) and are uncomfortable and have been for several years. The units seem to maintained only enough to keep the failures to a level just below embarrassing and they are often low on poor and sound rough as a badgers but they have had a nice external paint job so that is ok!
Time keeping is slack at the best of times I think due to it being a country line run by machines constantly on the point of failure. The staff are a pretty decent bunch and seem to be the best thing about the current operator. They deal with the many problems with humour and a refreshing, blunt honesty and frankly keep the show on the road (when there is a driver! ). The TOC in my opinion don’t care and don’t want to run the service but I am sure they gleefully gobble up the subsidy offered and any fares we give them.
Passengers see no obvious improvements in their service yet are called on to pay more and more. It matters not a jot to the average passenger that there are new signals or new track layouts. Most don’t even connect fare revenue with track works. They simply see a failing service costing them more and more each year for little in return. The more astute may recognise the vague jam tomorrow promises but most want to know where there money goes. The majority think, perhaps rightly, that it goes to swell TOC profits rather than improving services. They look at what the TOC offers them and jump to that conclusion very quickly because what the TOC offers them is basically rubbish and sweepings from their table.
