St Albans commuters very rarely get a seat, so there won't be complaints about that.
It seems that the Herts Advertiser whinges more about St Albans' train services than all but a few passengers. Their headlines regularly scream about hoardes of complaining commuters every time there is a delay. Of those I know that regularly use the line, there is an reluctant acceptance that operations do sometimes fail, but hardly any of the histrionics that the Advertiser imagines.