If your delayed on a train check this site out.

http://www.traindelays.co.uk/index.php

Register your details, the service you travelled on, what you know about the delay and claim the compo your entitled too.

As an annual Season Ticket holder, I'm told by GNER that I'm not entitled to any compo as I get a discount at renewal to compensate me for the poor service I've received over the last 12 months. However my argument is that I can exprience delays and get nothing if they hit their targets.

I mention this because I was delayed by 1 hour 50 minutes last Friday evening. I jumped on the 18.30 just before the deadline and feeling dead pleased with myself for making it in time. The train left at sometime after 20.15 and I arrived home at 21.30 thoroughly pissed off. And GNER think it's OK to offer me nothing by way of appology.

Whilst the servcies I've caught this week have all run on time, the same can't be said for others.

Chatting with a few fellow commuters this morning, it seems a number of the evening trains have been delayed though strangly not one person could remember GNER giving an explanation as to why.
I also learned that there have been a number of carraiges whose aircon has failed.

The moral of this story is - Ya pays ya money, ya takes ya chance with GNER.

Anyway, I'm just about to leave the office for Ascot Races which will men a ride on Southwest Trains from Waterloo. I wonder what state the bone shaker will be in after the morning rush hour?

I got to wondering on the way home today, just what has made this week differant to last as far as GNER & Network Rail are concerned. Why did I consider this? Well you consider this if you will: -

As we all know it's been as hot and sunny this week as it was last. This week my trains have run pretty much run on time, but last week we were delayed. They said the delays was due to the hot weather has on metals and trains were limited to 90mph. If that was the case last week, what makes this week so differant? Why have we not had to endure the same delays? Have Network Rail stumbled on a cheap, cost effective method of cooling the tracks because you can bet your life it will have to be cheap? Have they snuck over to Saudi Arabian and nicked all their tracks? Or perhaps it was the fairies casting magic dust upon the whole East Coast Mainline?

More likely they just got it wrong. The question is, are the compromising safety this week or were they over cautious last week?

Fuck - I feel a GNER Customer services e-mail coming on? WOnder if they'll answer?

On the plus side, all the caoches I've been in this week had just about adequate aircon. On another down side, only 1 coach had air con which cooled the coach to the point of real comfort. Having said that it's worth noting that I get warm in 22 degrees.

Off to Ascot Races tomorrow so will also get to experince the service provided by another operator. I'm not looking forward to it either as I'm expecting worse facilities than GNER's.

Nope. But an outsider (thats what p'boro people call strangers)arriving at p'boro station would think we had if they saw the amount of Motorbikes and Scooters parked outside the station these days.

I'd say a number of the extra bikes are fair weather riders who've taken the oportunity to get a bit of use out of their investment while the weather holds.Come October, they'll all be gone. The other new riders should still be there though as they are there as a direct result of GNER's increased parking fees.

I estimate there must be an extra 20 to 25 bikes compared to this time last year. Assuming 50% are riding to avoid the parking fees thats about £10,000 revenue GNER are loosing. And don't forget. A number of people now park somewhere other than the GNER car park which means even more lost revenue for GNER.

Finally on this subject my impression is that GNER are not replacing the lost parking customers with new. There was a time when it was impossible to get a spot after say 8am. Not anymore though. According to my mate who always drives, you can now get a spot whatever time of day you arrive.

I don't want to tempt fate but on the trains front, it's not been a bad week so far. Only yesterday mornings train was delayed and even that was only by a couple of mins. Despite my fears the aircon has worked in each of the carraiges I've entered but the bioggest shock came last from last nights trolly dolly. THE BEERS WERE PROPERLY COLD. Not lightly chilled, luke warm, or room temp, but COLD.

Aprently GNER are to run buses between the area of Peterbrough in which I live, and the station.

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=845&ArticleID=1647927

Some might think this is good news. I don't. £200k invested in a scheme which probably won't pay for itself seems like a total waste of money and could have been better spent on cheaper tickets or parking.

The cost of this service is aparently £20 per week and you have to pre-book. Assuming I work 5 days a week for 47 weeks of the year, I would spend £940 pa just to get to the station and back plus £5000 on my season ticket. Alternatively I could buy an annual parking permit for £1080 + running costs of the car or keep Scootering which I estimate costs me about £550 per year.

With this in mind GNER think I'd rather spend an extra £390 (or 71%) with them than I currently pay for my Scooter. On top of that I have to wait for the buses. Compare this to my current arrangements for travel where it's free and I only have to wait as long as it takes me to unlock the Bike and put my helmet on before I'm off. As far as I can see the only plus side for me is that perhaps I might be a little warmer and drier during the winter months.

Apart from being more expensive than my Scooter, only marginally cheaper than an annual parking permit, GNER have decided they are only going to provide this service in only 1 area of the city. What's this say about GNER's apparent attitude to people who live in the rest of the city? My take is - Not a lot but you decide for yourself.

Thanks GNER but no thanks. I'll stick to the Vespa and keep MY money in MY pocket.

Click the link to see the news.

http://www.lse.co.uk/FinanceNews.asp?shareprice=&ArticleRef=18785&ArticleHeadline=Sea_Containers_prepares_to_sell_GNER_to_avoid_bankruptcy_proceedings__report

Not sure how I feel about this one. I know I moan about GNER but given the frequency with which I travel with them and the problems I've experienced, I am justified and qualified. All the same, most of the time we know what to expect from GNER.

Here's a few interesting links for todays post.

This one takes you to the Peterborough Evening Telegraph web site campaign against the charges

http://www2.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/campaigns/trainparkingrobbery/about-the-campaign.htm

This one, As my colleague on http://www.gnersucks.co.uk/ first pointed out, takes you to the site that tells you what they're spending it all on: -

http://www.gner.co.uk/GNER/Livewire/Features/uniforms.htm

Finally, I'll also mention that GNER have not yet replied to my e-mail about the rise in parking fees.

I didn't go in this morning because I had a bit of a nightmare last night.

Following a company do in't smoke last night I caught the last Northbound GNER which left at 23.20. I sat opposite this old fellow who looked stone cold sober and I asked him to wake me at P'boro if I fell asleep. No probs he said, I'm going there myself. As a counter warning I set the alarm on my mobile and sometime later, the sandman came and got me. I woke about 1hr 15 mins later to see I was on my way to Grantham. Sat opposite was the same oldish gentleman snoring merrily. Mobile had turned off long ago.

Knowing that was the last train through Gratham, I settled down an a patch of grass local might describe as a park and slept with the other 3 p'boro residents in the same predicament. We all woke in good time for the first train back and I finally got home sometime near 6am.

Needless to say I haven't been in today and took the decision to work from home. (Honest I have done some).

Finally I'd like to mention that I took delivery of a loverly new Vespa GT this week to replace my aging PUG Scooter. Little did I expect this thing to be so differant to the PUG, but it is. Everything about this bike is better. The Ride, Handling, speed, acceleration, extras, looks and style etc. That's it now I'm never going back from a Vespa. Cool bikes in my opinion.

I'm sorry to say that another poor unfortunate chose to end it all yesterday by standing in front of a train at Histon.

I arrived at KK just as the clock pass 17.15 to hear the tannoy advise passengers to board the next train bound for their destination regardless of the opperator as Network Rail could not guarantee when the next train would be leaving due to a fatality at Histon and expanding tracks due to the heat.

I boarded my usual 17.20 which left 7 minutes late because, we were told, the drivers previous journey arrived late and he was just boarding the train and powering up the drive untit. We then learnt that a 90mph speed restriction was in place because of the heat. All this resulted in us arriving into Peterborough a good 25 mins late.
I suppose it's understandable especially when you consider the fatality but i did find myself wondering if the French TGV or Japaneese Bullet were restricted in hot weather.

No such problems this morning which doesn't explain why we ran at a crawl through Stevenage and arrived 5 minutes late.

I heard this story this morning. I don't know how true it is but it sounds incredible.

If you look on GNERsucks blog (se TAG below) you will see the 18.00 train he caught from KK on Monday 17/07 was delayed and rerouted due to some poor unfortunates suicide attempt. Thankfully I caught an earlier train (17.20) and missed the delay.

The story goes as follows: - Sometime after the 17.20 cleared Potters Bar, a gentleman decided he would end it all by lying on the tracks as a train approached the station. He got as far as lying on the tracks but as the train approached he lost some of his nerve and curled up into the feotal position in the centre of the northbound tracks. By some miracle the train passed over the top of him without a scratch. At this point he lost his bottle altogether, picked himself up and walked back onto the platform. The police had already been called so were on site and he was escorted from the station etc as he rejoined the platform.

And here the story ends. I don't know how true it is but I can't find any reports on any web site mentioning a suicide at potters bar.

From my own perspectibve I didn't travel yesterday, so can't comment and my usual 07.20 ran on time and arrived 4 minutes early.

GNER still haven't replied to my e-mail though. I wouldn't mind but I really thought they would, in time.

I expected today wouldn't be a good day for GNER and I think I was right if my experiences are anything to go by.

I left home slightly later than normal becasue we'd left a whole load of washing up and I fancied giving the enemy a real surprise - In fact I can picture her now, walking into the kitchen in a semi comatose state, and then having to find a seat when she finally notices the sink is empty and the drainer full.

Anyway I arrived at P'boro station, parked my Scooter and walked onto the platform to hear that the platform had changed from 2 to 3. What I didn't catch was that this train was in fact the 07.00 and not my usual 07.20. This sort of explained why I looked a complete arse when I tried to boot this guy out of my seat and he mearl pointed out that the ticket had his name on it and politly but firmly told me he wasn't budging. In retrospect I don't blame him.

Luckily, whilst trudging away muttering how incompetant GNER are and the position they'd just put me in I found an unreserved seat and as luck would have it, it was one of the few with extra leg room. I'd just got mi book out and settled down for a good read when the guard came on the tanoy to 'appologise for the late running of this 07.00 service'. The penny dropped. Fuck!

I mgot ove rthe shame fairly easily and sweat it out in the office for the next 8 hours or so. 5pm finally arrived and I trudged off to KK. I arrived in good time but as sweaty as a fat lass at a rave. A I climbed into my usual coach the heat hit me. Having been comuting for a while heat instantly tells you the air cons has failed. All hope lies in it being confined to 1 coach so I asked the first person I encountered and learnt that air con was in all coaches except D & E. Incidentally, these were the same knackered old coaches I mentioned in an one of last weeks postings where exactly the same thing happened.

I guess the heat had put a lot of people off traveling because I had no problem fining a seat in one of the cooler wagons and finally settled down with mi book and best mate Keith Della (Stella). When I say cooler I mean only a bit for the guards had locked all the auto doors open so that cooler air from the wagons adjoining the wagion with no air con, would waft in. I was marginally better though.

Eventually the trolly arrived not long after Stevenage and when it did I was kicking myself for not buying 2 cans earlier. Off licience = £1 per can, GNER = £2.50 (ish). Not only that, mine was as good as empty. I stopped the trooly girl and asked if her tinnies were cold. She handed me one and said 'judge for yourself' but air temp is not what I call cold today so I politly told her it would be sacralidge to waste such lovely beer by drinking it warm, besides it wouldn't be very refreshing either, and off she popped.

Finally we crawled into Tinsel Town and when I say crawled I mean Crawled. Don't know why but the last mile was done at cycling pace. When we did get to the station we were 9 minutes late.

In summary I've been on 2 late train's today, innocently accused somebody of a crime they didn't commit and been in a sauna which masquaraded as a train. On a plus side I bought a Scooter at the weekend and it arrives tomorrow. I can't fucking wait to get my hands on it either. Consequently I'm not going in tomorrow. Instead I'll be taking my lovely new VESPA for a spin round the cambridgshire countryside and in such lovely weather too.

Fuck. Big blog man!

Apart from the delay the other day, punctuality has been pretty impressive since I returned from my hols.

I think I'd also like to mention train guard Michael Jacques who this morning went as far as he possible could to help a girl avoid paying for another titcket because she'd lost the original and only had her CC receipt to prove anything. This guy is a star. He was sympathetic to her predicament, phoned through to p'boro station to see if it had been handed in and gave her advice on what to do. He still charged her for a new ticket though only because that's his job. All in all a good job well done by a true proffesional. Nice one Michael.

The other thing I'd like to mention is GNERs recent announcment that they are taking the office of rail regulation to court in a battle to intriduce additional service on the east coast main line. The ORR say there simply isn't the capacity yet Network Rail and GNER say at least 12 new services could be introduced between P'boro & Kings Cross and possible 20 London to Edingburgh services.

Despite how I feel about GNER's customer services policies and revenue strategies, they have my full support on this one.

More next week.

Until this morning, I haven't had too much trouble with GNER's punctuality but that's all gone to pot now.

Before I go any further I thought I'd mention that GNER customer services have still not responded to my e-mailed enquiry about the reasons behind the recent hike in Parking fees. For those that haven't expierienced GNER customer services before, this is fairly indicative. If I'm lucky I may get a reply inside a month.

With regards to the trains, as I said earlier it's all been going very well until this morning. I think I'd be right in saying that I've caught the 07.20 and 17.20 King Cross/P'boro connections for the last 4 working days and each train has arrived, left and arrived on time. But this morning I went for the 07.46 because it's de wifes Birthday. I just got onto the platform at 07.42 when the dreaded announcement came - 'GNER are sorry to inform passengers waiting for the 07.46 GNER connection to London Kings Cross that this train is running aproximately 30m minutes late due to technical difficulties on a freight train in the York area. Please accept our appologies for any inconvenience this may cause'. Like we beleive them!.

Next GNER train due was the 08.03. This arrived nearly 4 minutes late too though there was no announcement or appology from P'boro station staff. It did make up a few minutes on the journey into Kings Cross and arrived only 2 mins late. Late is still late though.

The reason? It's July 7th 2006. As I write it's exactly 1 year since those Fucking Muslim Extreemists sent 50+ innocent people to meet their maker and injured shed loads more, including one or two people I know.

First indication that today is like no other Friday came as I pulled into P'boro station. Parked in some of the 10 minute short stay parking spaces was 1 police Car, 1 BBC radio cambridge 4x4 and another BBC TV 4x4. 

Second indication came when I parked the Scooter and found spaces galore and a copper wandering round the few bikes that were there. 

I didn't go into the station building so I can't tell you what was going on in there but on the Platform, less than half the usual suspects had turned up. I spotted my mate having a conversation with another passenger and wandered over. They were talking about how it looked like many people had stayed away so I asked why? Maybe a stupid question but in my defence I have to say that at this point it hadn't occured to me that people would stay at home purely because of the significance of the day. They soon put me straight and I did my usual and dismissed any sympathetic concerns I might have as pathetic.

On the train itself, there were seats galore which was yet another indication that people had stayed away. It even left P'boro and arrived at KK on time. As we walked down the platform at Kings Cross I took a good look arround me. Not only did I see there were  significantly less people about than usual, there were Coppers everywhere, some armed.

Finally I walked out of the side exit to be greeted by a line of press cameras and across the otyher side of Pentonville Road a line of TV cameras. I could even see Bill off BBC Breakfast stod on the roof of some building up road. I gave him a little wave and left the madness behind as I trudge off to the office.

I don't know what you think about people staying away because of something that happened 12 months ago but I don't really understand it. I'm sure people have their reasons and I've tried to think of a reason connected to last years events that would keep me from traveling, but the only thing I could think of was a warning that THERE WILL BE A BOMB EXPLOSION THAT WILL KILL LOTS OF INOCENTS AT KK THIS MORNING. I certainly wouldn't come in if that were the case.

So there you have it. A strange one to say the least. Andno! GNER have not yet replied to my e-mailed question over parking charges and their strategy.

Just done a bit of checking and look what I found. Click the links.

As you'll see, in most cases GNER have provided a variation of excuses to justify increased parking fees at each station. These range from, bring fees into line with other local parking charges, Increase spaces, cover costs of CCTV, to cover the costs of their franchise which incidentally, many feel they overpaid (or rather their customers will)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/5089240.stm

http://www.granthamtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=833&ArticleID=1582803

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5138768.stm?ls

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=845&ArticleID=1576127

The words Grabbing, Bastards and Money spring to mind though not necessarily in that order.

Situation is as the title states. The trains have run on time this week but 48 hrs after my Email, GNER still haven't replied. I truely beleive they will but if I'm honest, I think it will be a good week or so before they get round to me. I guess there must be so many complaints, that or they can't justify their actions and/or really don't care what their paying customers think.

Good journey home on the 17.20 last night and an equally enjoyable journey on the 07.20 this morning too. So apart from the shock news about the increase to parking fee's, GNER seemed to have got off to a reasonable start this week.

WRONG.

I arrived at the office eager to see if they had replied to yesterdays e-mail. Guess what? You already know they haven't.

On the way home I got the usual 17.20 to find they were using what has to be the oldest, tattiest coches still in service, some fat blond dolly bird sat in my seat just so she could sit opposite an equally fat and ugly brunette dolly birdshe obviously thought of as a mate. All this on a train whose air con system was so old it had obviously given up trying to cope with the heat and to top it all off, it broke down just as I'd got myself settled and was about to open a nice cold can of Kieth Della (Stella for those that can't work that one out). Fucking marvelous. 2nd day back and looks like I'll be late.

So off I hopped over to platform 1 to minimise the delay and sit in the nice, plush, refurbshed, air conditioned Malard carraige of the 17.30. I'm glad I did mind cos I'd left me book in the office, didn't fancy working too much cos it was so hot and bumped into a mate who had a few mags worth glancing through (OK Heat was one but I skipped all the ladies pages honest) and had a bit of a chin wag. Which was nice.

Even so, the fact is the train broke down, there was no air con and a shed load of people and I were inconvenienced again.

Lets see if I get a reply tomorrow? What do you think?

After 2 weeks holiday and the absolute joy that I missed the farce created by the closure of Kings Cross last week, I expected to come back with little or nothing to say. I should have know better shouldn't I?

It seesm that GNER have, in their infinite wisdom, decided to increase Car Parking charges at P'boro station by 50% and buffet prices by 10%+. The usual £5 per day parking fee is now £10 and a tea or coffee is I think £1.30. Personally I only take the car when I absolutely have too so that won't affect me too much and I'll be taking a flask from now on just so I can stick 2 fingers up at GNER. That aside I have written the following e-mail to GNER to see what replies and justifications they offer (if any).
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Sirs,

I'm a season ticket holder between Peterborough and Kings Cross and I've just returned from a 2 week holiday to some shocking news from GNER.

Whilst I applaud GNER for minimising increases to ticket prices this year, I now understand how you've managed to do it - Increase car parking charges by 50% or more and the go eat buffet prices by at least double the rate of inflation.
Quite frankly you are having a laugh at your most loyal customers expense and it's quite obvious you really have no idea how to make a customer feel valued.
Do you understand how people budget?. I don't think so.
Do you really think your customers using the parking facilities can afford to spend an extra £1000 PA and find the money with little or no notice? Obviously you do.
How on earth do you justify such increases? I bet you can't.
How many other stations have increased parking prices by a similar of higher percentage?

I also note that you have made very little by way of announcements on this subject. I registered for e-mailed updates which will affect my journey but I have received no such e-mail about these increases yet this directly affects my journey. I also note there is no mention on your web site. What's the matter are you embarrased about what you have done.

Last year I sent you an e-mail to express my concern about your last increase to go eat buffet prices and said I'b be watching. When I first started commuting in Sept 04, the price of a cup of tea was £1. Now it's £1.20 and I hear they are to increase further. Just how much do you think passengers will take?

Finally I would appreictae an explanation and details as to exactly what prices GNER are increasing and why.

I look forward to receiving your reply.