Adzi.NET

I was stood on Canterbury West’s London bound platform staring at my train that was a meager 40ft from the station, sat stationary!

In December, the bosses at SouthEastern trains developed a wonderful new timetable accross their network. Originally there was three trains an hour from Canterbury West to Charing Cross, formed of one express train and two stopping services. The newly revised table has axed the express service and a stopping service and replaced it with one Hi-Speed train!

My journey from Canterbury West to Waterloo East would range from 1:30 to 1:50 depending what train I caught, but now it’s just under two hours! I could opt to pay the £4.00 upgrade ontop of my normal extortionate train fare to use the hi-speed service and then be shot through the country side at spectacular speeds only to arrive at St. Pancras… the other side of London. I would then have to spend a further £2.80 (£4.00 without an Oyster Card) to get accross London to make my connection at London Waterloo. Basically I would have to spend an extra £13.60 every week, that’s half my fare! And here is the icing on the cake, my full journey on the normal service takes 2:43 and the journey via hi-speed – 2:43. The underground journey obliterates any time saved by the super fast speedy train as I would still end up catching exactly the same connection at London Waterloo!

I understand that Southeastern has to make their money back on these fast bullet style trains but it’s almost like being forced on one. It’s not just me that feels like this. Thousands of commuters from the south east have been screwed over by the introduction of these carbon monstrosoties. The official line from Southeastern Railways is a glorified, beaurocratic “Tough Shit”.

National Express anyone?

I’m currently sat on the South Eastern train service from Canterbury West to Waterloo East! The train arrived about 5 minutes early, as usual, and waited to depart! As we pull into Ashford International, on time, an announcement is made saying that we will be waiting for 12 minutes as we need to wait for another service to depart! 28 minutes later and we’re still at the platform! Now I’ve just heard that the service will terminate at London Bridge! One station before Waterloo East, because the train is so incredibly late. So instead of recording the train as late, it will now be completely stricken from any records as it never arrived in it’s final destination! Watch out South Eastern Trains because I’m in your tail gunning for a refund and compensation! Instead of arriving in Fleet at 22:18 it will be around 11pm… Cheers!

After I wrote this post, I made a connecting train from London Bridge to Waterloo East where the pre-pubescent train guard challenged me for having the wrong ticket! I replied that my ticket allowed me on any route through London on the overground network. He started shouting saying I don’t know what I’m talking about! At this point I told him to formicate himself, preferably with something large and pointy! This absolute monkey starts writing out a penalty notice to my disbeleif! He’s tried to issue me with a penalty fair for £20.00 for the “wrong ticket”! At this point my station stop came, I wasn’t going to be delayed so I told him to post it to me but, and I quote…
“if that slip drops onto my doormat I will be going for your job so think carefully about whether my ticket is actually illegal or wether your just a fucking idiot! Have a good night!”