Click to enlarge (the picture, that is - not the Rant) This must be one of the longest posts I've ever published?
Those who've heard it all before, look away now…
If you use the railway regularly, you can't fail to have seen the recent tv advert, exhorting the populace to travel by train as the new, alternative, socially- and environmentally-acceptable
mode de transport?
It features some jaded, ex car-commuter who steps into a bright, near-empty carriage, where he sits in splendid isolation, occasionally benefiting from a benevolent smile from railway staff and other, equally happy fellow commuters. Legs stretched out, he basks in the new freedom.
The accompanying jingle is "He's on the 8:15 to Croydon."
Well, let me tell you, the reality sucks.
The 12-coach, air-conned, wifi-enabled Victoria-bound express which preceded my train, pulled smoothly away to allow an eight-coach, slam door and unapologetically late cattle truck to crawl in.
"Please remember to close the doors behind you" recommended the gantry signs.
No. Today, I feel like holding the handles and swinging on the hinges on the way in to the City!
Instead, along with a dozen other second-class travellers, I stood in the aisle outside the first class compartment for the whole trip, looking out through grime-sealed windows which clearly (sic) have only ever received any cleaning, courtesy of condensation from the breath of commuters and the cattle which evidently use the ‘service’ outside the peak hours. I’ve seen more sterile Petrie jars. And student digs. And abandoned Cardboard City boxes. Enough culture to host a whole pandemic of Avian 'Flu...
I reckon some failed Square Miler has got a top spot in the Rail industry and is now wreaking revenge on their former, fellow City-bound victims. Ba5tard!
When I started commuting, something like eighteen months ago, marketing types were touring the train, dispensing questionnaires and free biros and canvassing opinion about the service being provided. (I also seem to recall, they promised that slam-doors would be de-commissioned within the next six months?) Ba5tards!
Anyway, those guys must have been P-45'd in my second week, because no-one has since asked the simple question "How're we doing?" Suicide bombers would have a longer life expectancy..
And so the joy of commuting lasted less time than a post coital flush..
I sometimes wish that Deans & Lightalloys Limited had built some redundancy into their rolling stock when they built them prior to WWII. It's a testament to their skills that the damn things are still holding together.
They must have diversified into Black Box construction?
# posted by Mr.D. @ 8:27 AM
Drinking and Driving (but clearly not simultaneously)
