It’s not exactly ground-breaking satire to complain about National Rail. Anyone who has ever experienced rush-hour commuting will undoubtedly have the words ‘we are sorry for any inconvenience caused’ tattooed across their heart, and will be so accustomed to functioning in intensely overcrowded conditions that even an armpit directly across the face is not enough to deter the devouring the Metro’s ‘guilty pleasures’ section.
However, after experiencing commuting into a smorgasbord of different London destinations since leaving university, I feel that I am definitely nurturing the same twisted, internal knot of frustration, rage and injustice that is displayed by regular train users as a necessary badge of solidarity. At this point I feel it only fair to point out that my frustration does not extend to all UK train journeys. I once took a Virgin train from Euston to Liverpool, and I felt like a life- sentenced criminal allowed to experience a chink of freedom for one day only. I mean, the train left on time. That was the initial point I felt as though beams of heavenly light were spiralling down upon me in rapturous tendrils. A choir of archangels began to harmonise as I found a seat with relative ease. I expected at any moment to be offered a plate of oysters and glass of Moët as part of my ticket fee. (I wasn’t, obviously, but for the sake of hyperbole…)
My morning commutes however, cut quite a different narrative. Below are the top five astounding and bemusing truths that I have learnt as a regular commuter – National Rail, if you’re reading this, feel free to ignore it altogether and continue to collect the majority of my wages in ticket fees.
1. Arriving anywhere on time is a hopeless pipe-dream.
For a period of 3 months now, I have taken the 8:09 service to London Liverpool Street from my little-known, Essex hometown. For a considerable majority of mornings, the train pulls into Liverpool Street at at 8:58 (not that I have been keeping a tally chart or anything). This was all well and good, until one fateful morning, whereby a ‘broken down train at Broxborne’/ ‘leaves on the line’ / ‘the wrong kind of snow’ / INSERT FUTULE EXCUSE HERE had caused what can only be described as a ‘severe delay’. The train driver deemed the delay to be severe enough to make contact with his passengers over the intercom system, and amongst the garbled murmurings about ‘congestion’ and ‘inconvenience’ I heard the following: ‘this service, which has a scheduled arrival time at London Liverpool Street of 8:51 is now running 9 minutes behind schedule’. 8:51??? 8 50 freaking 1???? I almost choked on my lukewarm Costa coffee. Was this some kind of bad joke? At not one point in the last 3 months had that train managed an arrival time of 8:51. I think 8:53 was the earliest I ever experienced.
What this revelation taught me however, is that CLEARLY consistency is not the problem with dear old Abellio Greater Anglia rail network. Punctuality seems to be more of an issue however. I mean, if the fatigued, befuddled driver hadn’t given the game away, I wouldn’t have been any the wiser that the regular 8:58 arrival time was wildly erroneous. Call me crazy and idealistic, but if you are successfully managing to run a service with a fairly unwaveringly constant arrival time, would it not be prudent to alter the schedule a cheeky 7 minutes on the down-low, avoid the heart-wrenching upset of your passengers, and look pretty shithot at your job at the same time?
2. First Class is not as luxurious as you may think.
The existence of First Class carriages is something that baffles me on a near daily basis. For a start, there’s the fact that First Class is no more than a decadent euphemism for ‘pay several pounds more for the luxury of a small napkin draped over the top of your seat that serves no obvious function’. Secondly, as a large portion of commuters have grown wise to this epic rip-off, the First Class carriages are largely empty and at best, severely underused during the vast majority of my commutes.
At rush hour, on trains which after the first two allotted stops are strictly standing-room-only, this is irksome to say the least. Because not only is it strictly prohibited for the standard-class plebs to sit in a chair with added napkin, it also proves to be forbidden for them to stand even in the vicinity of the enticing, empty First Class seating.
It is with not even a smidge of exaggeration that I recount witnessing a weary, desperate commuter perching in the bag-rack of a First Class carriage, during a journey throughout which I was having most of my vital organs compressed between several fellow passengers and the train door. After a few minutes of this arrangement, a ticket warden decided it would be prudent to make his way through the crowds, causing a deeply uncomfortable ripple effect as he did so. On finding this poor, First Class stowaway, clinging to the metal bars of the bag-rack like an imprisoned canary, would he show a shred of humanity? Would he turn a blind eye to let one commuter take a small amount of weight off her feet, at the price of being pinioned between the wheels of someone’s unnecessarily large suitcase (which for the record was enjoying a far better seating arrangement than she was)? Come on now. This is National Rail.
He insisted she exit the holy sanctity of First Class immediately, and only became more stoic in his insistence when she pleaded her case, gesturing wildly at the hellishly cramped conditions on the other side of the automatic door. In the end, the woman squeezed her way back into standard class, ACTUALLY WIPING AWAY A TEAR as she did so.
3. The words ‘at-seat refreshment service’ are the most frustrating of the entire journey.
Considering the common rush hour conditions I’ve just described, whereby commuters are clinging onto each other to avoid toppling in the absence of any reachable handrails, sitting in forbidden bag-racks to experience even a second of respite before being turfed back into the sprawl, enjoying the rolling countryside as it flashes past their mangled noses, compressed against the train window, spending entire journeys inhaling the scent of another passenger’s hair and praying they’d used Herbal Essences that day, considering this, can you imagine a worse idea than to push a cumbersome trolley, complete with Abellio-branded, human vendor along the length of the train, attempting to sell goods to people who frankly can’t even lift their arms to scratch their heads, let alone extricate any currency to pay £3.60 for an unfeasibly weak cup of tea?
The refreshment trolley never ceases to stun me with its sheer impudence. Even when you’d think there was no possibility of even a sheet of paper passing through the crowds, along comes the rickety clattering of the refreshment trolley, so intent on reaching its end destination that nothing, including a solid wall of humans will stand in the way. Even when people are practically climbing into the overhead bag-shelves, shutting themselves in the toilets and trying all they can to make themselves physically 2D to allow the trolley just to pass, still the vendor is hopeful that someone will stretch out a hand from the depths of their commuter chasm with £6 worth of 20ps for a packet of mini cheddars.
4. You’ll have to mind the doors, in a variety of regional dialects.
Standing clear of the doors is second nature to most commuters, and indeed people who haven’t used the railway since 1987, mainly because no one really wants to get half their body ripped off outside of the train at high(ish) speed. However, this does not stop every departure from being accompanied by a chorus of warnings to ‘stand clear of the closing doors’. I wouldn’t mind, I would shut it out (pun intended), but the incessant warnings are impossible to ignore when every one is in a different tone, intonation, and accent. Some warnings are even from the train itself, running across the LCD display as well as the loudspeaker.
From this I can only deduce that National Rail is attempting to cover all bases, and get the message across to every passenger in their own idiosyncratic style – for the preened woman in a skirt-suit ‘Please stand clear of the closing doors’. For the sweaty, weary, half-asleep businessman ‘Pleeaaaase stand clear oooof the closing doooorrrs’ For the easily distracted ‘Please stand clear of the doors please, stand clear of the closing doors’ and for the rouge-cheeked gentleman who smells lightly of his local alehouse ‘Please stand well clear of the closing doors’.
5. Occasionally, you’ll be asked to fill out a questionnaire.
One morning recently, my usual jaunt along the platform was interrupted by the arm of an Abellio representative, waving a folded piece of branded paper in my face. This turned out to be a ‘customer satisfaction questionnaire’. I really am still amazed that they had the audacity.