Comments on: And so, the traditions of Christmas continue

By: Sabot

Sabot — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:09:10 +0000

Trains would be so much happier travelling empty, don’t you think.
None of that nonsense with irrelevant passengers.

Actually, I suppose that trains beat planes. At least you can get out half way and have a quick ten fags.

By: Rog

Rog — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:48:01 +0000

Trains like planes I avoid totally now.
I find that I can get the same level of service by standing in a cold wind swept dark street for several hours plus its doesn’t require another mortgage.

By: john ward

john ward — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:40:16 +0000

Dear Miss Mink
It was started by the State in the 1950s, turned into an art form by the banks, utilities and all transport forms in the 1980s, and perfected by the software, telecom, ISP, Government Dept and judicial websites after 1995. All the others have since caught up with their high-handed standards. So nobody gets any service in any shape or form at all any more except in a shop. And once they all hide behind websites and deliver the wrong things to your door on the wrong day, we won’t get any from them either.
But it’s our own fault. We could stop it tomorrow by picking them off one by one and refusing to go along with their bonkers help searches and user forums and all the rest of the bollocks.
But we don’t. We just moan about it. And make puns out of railway words.
YM x

By: Thaddeus J. Wilson

Thaddeus J. Wilson — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:35:06 +0000

Ms Smudd, you can contact me at thaddeus dot j dot wilson at gmail dot com.

Miss Mink, The problem with the utility companies is that they are still highly-regulated, government-controlled businesses. There is an oligopoly situation, where although there isn’t a monopoly, there is a small enough pool of suppliers that any one of them will get a business-sustaining level of business, no matter how bad they are. And so … they are! Insurance companies will do whatever they can to protect their profits, the real villains of the piece are the courts which allow these frivolous claims and abrogation of personal responsibility.

By: miss mink

miss mink — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:54:43 +0000

Did the state start this sort of sour faced ’service’ attitude or big business ?
The water board, electric and gas companies are all the same, treat you like shit and keep you at an arms length, no ones responsible for anything that goes wrong or inconvenience coursed.
You’d think their business could survive without us, I’m hiring a car, they can stick their rail replacement bus.

By: Gloria Smudd

Gloria Smudd — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:43:08 +0000

Ere! ‘Ow do I e-mail you a ‘bit of a tale’ if I’ve wrote summink wot’s both jaundiced and news, like wot Mme R ‘as a ‘eader for? You is a mysterious one, you is an’ no mistake…

By: Thaddeus J. Wilson

Thaddeus J. Wilson — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:21:49 +0000

Yes, indeed: let’s have no more pointed remarks. I’ll be very disappointed if we do.

By: Joe Public

Joe Public — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:50:58 +0000

OK we get the points.

By: Thaddeus J. Wilson

Thaddeus J. Wilson — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:37:47 +0000

I think we get the point.

By: Gloria Smudd

Gloria Smudd — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:32:53 +0000

Why would anyone travel by train? Why?
…………..
Through sheer necessity OH, through sheer necessity. I had to drive my own car 200 miles then get on a train to go 200 miles back to get into someone else’s car and drive the 200 miles again. Sheesh!

(sorry, I seem to have been going over the points, over the points, over the points rather a lot there haven’t I?)

By: Thaddeus J. Wilson

Thaddeus J. Wilson — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:28:35 +0000

Old Holborn: if you are planning to get sozzled and need to get home, it’s pretty much the only option.

Somehow it never seems like it’s worth it, though.

Saul: I am concerned about giving you a platform for your observations here.

By: Saul

Saul — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:18:28 +0000

My mate was feeling a bit depressed, so I pushed him under a steam train…..

He was chuffed to bits!

By: Old Holborn

Old Holborn — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:15:15 +0000

Nope.

I’ve thought about it.

Why would anyone travel by train? Why?

By: Gloria Smudd

Gloria Smudd — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:30:25 +0000

OK, there’s no need to be so cutting! I’m actually siding with you on this one; my last experience of rail travel was chuffin’ dreadful as it happens. It cost me £90 (single) to stand next to the train’s leaky lav for 3 hours wedged into the very close company of 7 other seatless passengers and all our baggage. One of my fellow toilet-class travellers told me that he has made the journey every Friday and returned every Monday for the last 10 months and hadn’t ever, ever managed to get a seat. How we all cheered up when an incoherent chap with his flies unzipped and crate of lager under his arm pushed his way into our throng and treated us to an account of his life and times.

By: Demetrius

Demetrius — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:27:51 +0000

We gave up on family Christmases years ago, it was all getting too much hassle on the travel. So now when we meet it is all a lot more relaxed. Who really needs it?

By: Lorenzo

Lorenzo — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:26:03 +0000

With my first great vest on and my tunnel vision I seem to have soot around the eyes as I awake from my sleeper with a ballast of horn in my ears I set forth along the tract of stats from where I can gauge this Thaddeus revolution astride its iron horse. I’d better branch off now and grab my anorak as this incline is one in a hundred heading for the buffers

By: Thaddeus J. Wilson

Thaddeus J. Wilson — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:18:54 +0000

I will try not to derail the discussion.

By: ivan

ivan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:15:54 +0000

Thaddeus,
That will depend on the signal – stop or go.

By: Thaddeus J. Wilson

Thaddeus J. Wilson — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:11:06 +0000

I feel we may be getting dis-track-ted.

By: TheBigYin

TheBigYin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:05:12 +0000

I concur with Saul here. I bloody hate the trains because…well, I’m a smoker. That apart I remember, while in London, taking a train trip to see my brother, not a long trip, but long enough to be disgusted at the way commuters were being treated. Oh, and the 21st of Dec. is my birthday so the train situation does not bode well for us Sagittarians.