I've heard a lot of people say they've used the GNER WiFi and that it's quite good. Today I joined that elite club on a trip to Leeds and back. I have to say I wasn't too impressed.

Firstlymy lap top took an age to connect to the wifi signal. From there everything ran quite smoothly until the point where my transaction had been processed (£2.95 for half hour) and I was ready to log on to my roaming e-mail site. First I just about made it to the log on screen when I lost the signal and had to start all over again. Next I managed to log in and sat for what seemed like 10 minutes watching the front page load.

I read and dealt with the few messages that had come in since yesterday which went fine. By this time I had a little over 12 minutes access left but the train would pull into leeds in exactly 10 mins. I then tried to sort the e-mails into name order so I could find the one I really needed i.e. the one with the address of the site I was due to visit. It was mainly for this reason that I had purchased the access so I wasn't very happy when the fricking thing kept crashing and I had to keep logging back in and trying again. I gave after sitting on the now stationary train until my access ran out with the cleaners busying around me.

All in all I spent £3 and could get what I wanted through no fault of my own. And before any GNER staff say anything, my PC works fine thanks, I know it's possible to loose the signal and maybe I was a bit unlucky. Regardless I wasn't that impressed other than to say I quite liked the fact that I could access the Web from the comfort of my seat.

Some good news for commuters for once in the fight against GNER's disgustingly high parking charges. Although its for those nice folk of Grantham rather than the thundering masses at Peterborough. Basically another car park has opened at the station charging 1/3 of the GNER fee, this artical is well worth a read as the comments from GNER just go to show how far they have their heads burried in the sand.

http://www.granthamjournal.co.uk/WebPartsTpls/news?articleid=3047287

We've all had em. The people you sit next to on a train who you wish you hadn't or weren't. I sat on the late running 07.20 this morning next to some guy I could have sworn was playing Blow Football. As it is I suspect he has a sinus problem because the noise eminating from his nostrils whilst breathing was tremendous. I even heard him over the top of my Ipod and it's not as if I can ask him to keep it down a bit as all he's doing is breathing. He didn't smell too clever either.

At least they ran on time and from the looks of things are continuing to run on time. Hope that stays the same till home time.

So I get to KX on the way home at 13.50, having bunked off early.

It's PACKED, folks standing just about everywhere The 14.00 is listed as Queue Behind C, On Time. 14.10 is cancelled.

I go grab a sarnie. 13.59. Board still says QC, on time for the 14.00.

14.01. Board still says QC, on time.

14.02. The 14.00 just plain vanishes. No announcement, no change. No nothing. Great.

About then, I said f*** it, and caught the Cambridge Express, and went home the pretty way.

Dear Penfold

Our records show that you regularly travel with GNER from Peterborough. We are considering making a change to the service and would value your feedback.

The survey should take no more than 5 minutes to complete and all your responses will be treated in the strictest confidence.

Here is a link to the survey:
[link deleted, as it's personalised to me]

I hope you will take part in the survey; your feedback is very valuable to us. If you have any questions about this survey please contact me on insight@gner.co.uk. For any other comments or questions, please contact us via the 'customer care' pages at gner.co.uk.

Yours sincerely,

Jim Muir, Insight Manager, GNER

Please note: If you do not wish to receive further emails from us, please click the link below, and you will be automatically removed from our mailing list.
[link deleted as it's personalised to me]

Key question is:
The current weekday 0615 GNER service from Peterborough is timetabled to arrive into London Kings Cross at 0710, a journey time of 55 minutes.
We have an opportunity to change the timing of this service from the December 2007 timetable. The proposed service would depart from Peterborough at 0610 (5 minutes earlier than current) and be timetabled to arrive into Kings Cross at 0700 (10 minutes earlier than current). The total scheduled journey time would be 50 minutes (5 minutes shorter than current).
As well as that, there's a text area for general comments.

from nationalrail.co.uk:

"Train services in the Huntingdon area are being disrupted due to overhead wire problems.

"First Capital Connect will operate a replacement bus service between Peterborough and Huntingdon.

"GNER are operating an hourly shuttle diesel train service between Peterborough and Stevenage calling at Huntingdon."

Bollocks.

Of course, all GNER can say on THEIR site is: "GNER services in the Peterborough area are disrupted at present due damage to overhead power lines. GNER services will be subject to late notice cancellation and alteration. GNER wishes to apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause."

Pull your bloody fingers out, GNER, for Pete's sake.

Friday July 20th, 23.10 pm ---- I walked into Kings Cross intending to catch the 23.30 and be back in P'boro by 00.20. There are 2 GNER units on the platforms and all departure boards state the train is on time. Great.

22.22 Safe in the knowledge that I'll be back in P'boro 20 mins before them I watch the FCC p'boro service pull out. Departure boards still state the 23.30 is on time.

23.25 - Departure boards changed to read 23.30 will not even arrive into KX until 23.45. Old hands realise we won't be leaving until much before 00.00.

23.26 - Yours truely kicks off at anyone willing to listen or unable to escape. Amongst others yours truely heard to call GNER Wankers, tosspots, uncaring selfish mothers and much much more.

00.05 - 23.30 leaves KX and runs slow all the way to P'boro.

01.10 - Arrive P'boro.

Question - GNER knew that train was delayed but why didn't they tell us?

Statement - I was one fucked off passeneger Friday night and not my usual understanding self.

Message to GNER - Sort your customer commuications out.
Name calling to make me feel better - GNER is a Mother Fxxkxx.

Lesson to be learned for passenegers - GNER are worse at letting us know about delays at night than they are in the day. Hard to beleive I know but on this evidence, it's true.

This post has got absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this blog. I'm posting it becasue I've been in stitches today swapping dirty and rude poems or limericks we rember from our youth. This was/is my best: -

The sun shone on the village green
It shine on Little Nell
Was she Picking Daisies
Was she fucking hell
She was waiting for her lover
The dirty mother fucker
He wasn't fit, to shovel shit from one place to another.
He met her in an ally way
His cock was black as charchole
And in the dark, he missed his mark
And stuck it up her arsehole.

What sort of person would teach that to a ten year old? I can't remember but somebody did.

Anymore for anymore?

I read recently that Midland Mainline are intending to scrap the current compensation scheme for season ticket holders (which I beleive is similar to GNERs) and replace it with a cash for delays scheme. Depending on the cost of your season ticket, word is that you'll get 50% of a one way journey for delays between 1 - 2 hours, 100% of a one way journey for 2-3 hours and 100% of a return journey for anything over this.

Personally. I much prefer this scheme as people like me will actually get a cash refund for each delay we endure where as under the current scheme the likelihood is that I'll get nothing if GNER meet performance targets.

GNER (or at least the new franchise holder) should pay heed to this scheme as it sounds a lot fairer.

Some might say laughably it was the Public Relations who won team of the year at some industry do or other. I think they won becuase they're better at diverting the flak than any other teams.

Today? A trolley quite deliberately parked (and being restocked) across the first class end of the corridor past the buffet car.

Bit of a shock this morning the usually reliable 06.15 was cancelled. I have no idea why as no announcement or apology was made. We were left to make our way over to the FCC 06.20 which is always a good back up. Now we know commuters are the lowest form of life as far as GNER are concerned but a few announcements are not too much to ask for are they??

A very nice, if a touch flustered, lady sat next to me on the 17.30 tonight - it appears that as of 4pm Midland Mainline services were starting/terminating at Bedford or Luton with no services to/from London St Pancras, hence she was headed to Leicester via Peterborough, and a touch uncertain of train times. Nothing the trusty E61 + Network Rail's site wouldn't fix.

Apparently, though, Midland Mainline passengers get free tea and coffee in standard class.
GNER, are you listening?

Looks like things won't be back to normal for a while. On the 6.15, which is fine, as ever, since it starts in P'boro. The 6.40 is already down as 7 mins late, and the service (according to the sign at P'boro station) is going to be much like Friday: indeed, to quote GNER:

- GNER services will operate as normal between London King's Cross, York, North East England, Edinburgh and Glasgow Central.

- An hourly service will operate between London and Leeds.

- Replacement coaches will operate between Wakefield and Doncaster.

- Services to/from Aberdeen, Harrogate, Bradford, Skipton and Hull will be subject to alteration.

- Network Rail engineers are working over the weekend and GNER anticipate restoration of normal services from Tuesday 3rd July 2007.

The Ticket Collector has some somewhat wet-looking pictures.