For most of this week, I haven’t had any time for blogging. The combination of work, social life, tube strikes, and Southeastern messing up my trains has squeezed out any time I might have had for writing. Also, at times I find Southeastern (in particular) so utterly depressing that I try not to think about them for a bit, even while still having to use them.
So let me just give you the potted version of this week.
Monday: Trains a bit late to and from work. Nothing notable, just the same old same old.
Tuesday and Wednesday: To enhance the chaos and crowding resulting from the tube strike, Southeastern made sure to issue a massive litany of bleating excuses about train faults, delays, cancellations, signal failures, landslips, etc. I was late in on Tuesday, delayed home on Tuesday night (delay repay – missed connection), late in on Wednesday, and a bit late home that night (but without delay repay – only 20 mins, boo!). The tube strike itself didn’t directly affect me, since I don’t need to use it – it just made London Bridge busier, and meant I had to walk to Old Street from Cannon Street, instead of catching a bus. It rained all the way, but no biggie.
Thursday: Unusually bad go-slow on the run-in to London Bridge in the morning, and then we also remained parked on the platform for a good 10 minutes or so. The driver made an announcement we couldn’t hear, because he had carefully dialled down the volume to 1. In the evening I was out with friends and managed to avoid using Southeastern on the way home, so I was on time.
Today, Friday: Hellish journey in, on a packed short-formed train that was also boiling, and late, and delayed significantly en route. I had to stand for the whole 40 minutes or so with three very hot fan heaters hitting me – one aimed at my knees, one at my back, and the other at the side of my face. I have no idea why these heaters were on – the train was about 90 degrees. We opened all the windows, but it didn’t help much. On arrival, eventually, at Cannon Street, there was so much condensation on the windows that you couldn’t see out at all. Luckily I was at a meeting at the British Library in the afternoon, so I came home on FirstCapitalConnect from St Pancras. The journey was fast, on time, and comfortable.
Was it Southeastern’s worst week? Oh no, by no means. True, they were consistently atrocious. So it was pretty bad. But it was not Southeastern at their most soul-destroyingly incompetent. And the saving grace for me was that a couple of times I did not have to endure them.
One thing I noticed, and it doesn’t bode well. Before Christmas, if you recall, they started a habit of cancelling all services in advance whenever bad weather was forecast. They did this two or three times, while other operators continued to run a service, often on the same tracks. Southeastern, in contrast, took the day off, leaving thousands stranded.
Now, we have the same sort of bad weather. And this time Southeastern have NOT used their earlier precedent to cancel everything again. If I believed that this was because they were trying harder, or responding to criticism, I would be heartened. But that isn’t what I believe. I think they know very well that this cancel-everything lark isn’t something they can do too often. And it is February – we are probably going to get snow pretty soon. So for now, they are soldiering on, providing half a service while tweeting every few seconds about pesky broken trains, missing staff, signal failures, rolling stock awaiting repair, Network Rail failings, landslips, windy weather, rainy weather etc., etc. If you notice, they very rarely apologise in any of these tweets – only ever in reply to individuals who have complained about something specific. This is obviously policy, because an apology indicates that it is their fault. They carefully portray themselves largely as victims of circumstance who are trying to do their best. (This does not stand up to any scrutiny – of course it is their fault!)
The second it snows, if it does, watch what happens. They have previously withdrawn the service for less. Therefore, they will now feel entitled to do the same thing at the first sign of a snowflake anywhere between north Wales and Cornwall. They set us up to accept this by constantly and sorrowfully telling us how very difficult it all is in much milder conditions. The idea is that when it snows, we will feel that it is understandable, unavoidable even, for them to cancel everything, because snow = extreme conditions, beyond any reasonable operating limit. Of course this is utter bollocks. We are talking about a bit of snow, not the next ice age. They are manipulating us into accepting the unacceptable, and we are paying the staff who issue these brain-washing, hand-wringing tweets. Think about that.
I am keeping my eye on the weather forecast. And I am keeping my eye on you, Southeastern.
Platform 101 