Sorry to have to say but have GNER given up the customer service ghost in their last few months of existance?

My season ticket is due for renewal next month so I e-mailed the customer services team to find out how much it will be and establish whom the cheque should be made out too. A simple enough question I'm sure you'll agree.

Here I am 3or4 days later and not a word so i phoned them up this morning. Evenetually got through to business services after holding for 5 mins, talking to the wrong department, being transfered, holding for another 5 minutes, talking to the wrong department again, being transfered, holding for another 5 minutes, and eventually getting through to a card board cut out pretending to be a customer services adviser.

I explained my situation and what I wanted. Cardboard cut out man disaapear for 5 mins to get the price, came back, informed I was eligable for a 5% discount (which I knew) and quoted a price of £8000+. 'No it not' was my reply. 'Yes it is' Sez he. ' unless you've qouted the first class price, it can't be' sez I, 'Hang on' he sez. Diisappears for another couple of minutes. 'Sorry, your right. The correct price if £5054. Make the cheque payable to GNER Ltd.'. 'Limited you say? Well at least you got something right. Thanks. Bye'

20 minutes to get a price. This made me think. I might be wrong but the number dialed is an 0845 number. For those of you that don't know the owner of any 0845 numbers are paid by BT or whoever about 1p per minute to use the number. Or rather, we pay whoever about 2p per min on these numbers and they pay the owner 1p. That's 20p GNER and An other got out of me which is a nice little earner from where I'm sitting.

Aparently GNER are bottom of the TOC punctuality league table. Hard to beleive but they have even been worse than FGW who have been the subject of an investigation because of poor punctuality figures. This how the figures stack up: -
GNER FGW
Mar 4 - 31 82.7% 83.2%
Apr 1 - 28 82.4% 83.0%
Apr 29 - May 26 82.1% 82.8%
May 27 - Jun 23 81.6% 82.7%

What's GNER's excuse? They feel that becasue they only run 136 trains a day (significantly less than FGW) any incident will have a much great affect on performance figures. This summer has seen a spate of OH line failure south of Peterborough, (Can't say that I've noticed!) Cable thefts and trespassers, fatalities and floods have all been responsible for delaying trains this summer. (No change there then). Thanks to Rail Magazine for this info.

What cracks me up is that GNER's web site currently claims punctuality for the last period (whatever that may be) is 82.6% and the annual figure is 86.9%. Reliability is also running at 98.3% for the period and 98.3% for the year, just over the target of 98%. As a person due to renew next month, I hope reliability has fallen .4% over the last period (whatever that may be).

Finally I'll just mention some information I picked up while chatting to a network rail employee last week. Most p'boro commuters will have been caught out by the OHL failures sth of P'boro for the last few years. Aparently NW rail are still no nearer knowing why it keeps happening in the same area. Corrosion could be to blame,but that begs the question why this isn't happening with the smae regularity all over the place? They also believe that power surges might be to blame but surely that has to be one hell of a surge to burn through cables that are how many inches thick? Regardless, we can't expect a fix anytime soon if they don't know what the problem is. This can only mean more delays for us.

Plod were waiting for this mornings 07.20 to arrive so they could arrest some Rasta fella for whatever he'd done. Looking at the state of the bloke he was obviously boozed up or on something and looked like he was expecting the greeting. I'd love to know what he'd done but only becasue he seemed to be quite happy about it and the fact that I can be a nosey bastard.

In other news, I heard a new automated announcment on last nights 18.30. It didn't really tell you much but I can't really remember what it said as I wasn't paying a blind bit of notice to it until I realised it was and automated message and that I'd never heard anything like it before. Odd really. Are we going to be hearing more of these?

Finally, I've started thinking about other titles for this blog in light of the limited life of GNER. I quite like East Coast Commuter or ECML commuter but it will be hard for people to find us as generally most people look for the name of the TOC when searching for info. If anybody has any sensible suggestions, please feel free to leave them on a comments page.

National Express.

Mid December and it will be goodbye GNER, hello National Express and the government can expect a £1.4 Billion windfall throughout the franchise which runs to 2015. Under the deal, the operator will be expected to deliver faster journey times, with London to Leeds services taking two hours, as well as more London to Edinburgh trains with journeys lasting four hours 20 minutes. Do you think this will mean less trains stopping in Tinsel Town to acheive this. I suspect so!

National Express has committed to ensuring that nine out of 10 trains run on time, as well as environmental benefits such as reducing fuel consumption per passenger kilometre by 28% over the life of the franchise, and investment in four "green" stations. Not such a bad thing I suppose.

Yes it's crunch week and we should find out who our new ECML TOC will be.

If the press speculation is anything to go by it will be National Express who win the ECML franchise. Is that a good or a bad thing? Personally I think it will be a good thing as I have more confidence in them than any of the others. I just hope to god I'm right. Wonder what they'll call themselves though?

In other news Kings Cross station is well over due for a refurb and it looks like work is going to start soon. Apparently work will start at the back end of this year or begining of next and it should be finished by 2012. Like St Pancras the listed buildings will be treated sympathetically whilst the platforms will get a lovely new roof.

For those of you with a penchant for football, you'll no doubt know the season kicks off tomorrow. I've therefore decided to run a little fantasy football league for any of our regular visitors who can be arsed. It's simple to join.
Click the link - http://uk.premiership.fantasysports.yahoo.com/football
Register and select your team.
Click Join Group and enter Group ID#19267
Password is 125hst

I realsie by putting this on the web for all to see is a bit dodgy and we may get all sorts joining however as moderator, I can remove the unwated element as I see fit.

Yesterday iw as lucky enough to watch England and enjoy a bit of corprate enertainment at The Oval and very nice (and boozey) it was too.

By chance I met an old friend waiting for the 08.33 and sat with her for the duration. There was a bit of a posth fella sat opposite us who while been very pleasant he just couldn't keep quiet when the guards found out that the lady sat behind him had got on the wrong train and her ticket wasn't valid. Throughout the guards conversation with the lady concerned matey boy chuntered and moaned about how extortionate it was and that they should just charge her the difference between the ticket she'd bought and a full fare single etc.

Overall I thought the guard handled the situation very well. Whilst he acknowledged the fella he also managed to keep the conversation between himself and the lady and avoid letting matey boy into the discussion without being rude. It was obvious to one and all that the lady had got on an earlier train and chanced it, so deserved to pay for her mistake when caught. The guard on the otherhand was just enforcing regulations and doing his job. Whilst I understand how matey boy felt and even agree with him, if there's one thing I've learned while commuting it's that it is pointless going on at on board or station staff as they've heard it all before, are powerless to change poilcy and just want you to mind your own business, shut the fuck up and piss right off outa their face.

This isn't the only example of people having a pop due to extortionate train fairs I encountered yesterday though the second story involvesd a well know TV personality. After the game along with god knows how many other people I walked down to Oval Tube staion. Just as I got in they shut the doors behind me to let the congestion clear and cut me off from my companions. I blindly didn't realise this despite the noise levels behind me dropping by 99%. I didn't realsie this had happened until I heard this voice behind me moaning about the extortionate tube fares. I looked around to see who it was because I thought the voice was familiar and looked straight into the eyes of Sir Trevor McDonald of ITN fame. I just looked at him, smiled and said 'Welcome to our world Sir Trevor'. Sir Trevor just gave me one of those sarcastic, 'yes, thanks you very much' type looks said nothing and smiled back. And here ended my encounter with the celeb becasue I just walked off.

I've heard on the grapevine that GNER are putting up buffet prices yet again. I've had no information by how much or when but the source has been fairly reliable in the past.

If I wasn't anonymous I'd happily take bets that 10p goes on tea and coffee.

Arrived at KX for what I thought would be just in time for the 17.33. Nope. Delayed. No reasons given for the delay at Kings Cross but the train crew were kind enough to appologise and let us know it was due to overhead line problems in the Stevenage area. No surprise there then though I'd have been less surprised if they'd have said Holme ne P'boro.

Oh. while I remember, there are a couple of people who add comments on this site about the siz and attractiveness of GNER staff. Got to say the trolly dolly on this evenings 17.33 was not what I would call ugly and the ladies the other side of the table commented and what they'd like to do to the guard and it didn't involve violence