Stevenage is a town full of Chaves and cretins and wannabess and frankly its shit.

Maybe you should know about tickets before you start ranting about stevenage passengers

Passengers who buy tickets from London to Stevenage with ROUTE "Any Permitted" are infact entitled to travel on NXEC the same as what you are,not all guards and ticket examiners turn a blind eye to avoid conflict or not bother doing the tickets.

Bearing in mind that a guard will start in 1st Class and has to get through 3 coaches and if there are lots of people who wants tickets or travellers who want to upgrade their season tickets, this can take more than the 20 minutes it takes a train to come from London to Stevenage.

Also bear in mind that during peak hours of 1459 to 1858 only 4 NXEC trains stop at Stevenage, which could account for why the trains are busy up to Stevenage.

Fare paying passengers have every right to be on that train as you do

Prehaps you guards should start occasionally in standard class coaches, you might be surprised what you find. The number of Stevenage passengers on your trains has increased dramatically over the last few years prehaps its because they know you never bother to check their tickets, and could easily travel without one, or does that sound too much like hard work when its easier taking your commissions in the first class where there is obviously a lot more money to be made.

Prehaps Badwolf you would also like to explain why Peterborough passengers have to pay £1000 a year more for an "any permitted" season ticket when 40% of the journey is on the Stevenage to King Cross route where any old ticket seems vaild. That does not make any sense to me mate, prehaps you would enlighten us all.

I was reading with interest about the Stevenage passengers, as National Express previously ran my own train service (Midland Mainline) we have the same problem at Bedford, so instead of getting FCC trains they jump on the faster service and fill up the train on the way home so it's get there early or stand.

The reason Guards stay towards the back of the train is simple. There is a matrix for the position of which the train has to despatched from every station and it dictates we have to be in the rear 3 coaches of the train at Stevenage. By the time we had done the departure announcment from the cross, walked the length of the train to go somewhere else, allowed enough time to get back in good time for arrival into Stevenage, we would get nothing done at all. If its any conciliation I don't like people getting away without paying any more than you do, and its nothing to do with commission before anyone says that!!! Please rememember that as guards our primary responsibily is for the safety of the train and its passengers and revenue/customer service is very much secondary to that duty. It seems to be a fact that gets overlooked a little bit by the users of this blog from time to time.

How about having a few extra revenue collectors on the train to cover the standard coaches, that way you can stay where you need to be. Other trains often have these on board, I think they only go as far as Peterborough? by which time their work is done. I do not however remember seeing them working a train full of Stevenage passengers.

More revenue collectors your having a laugh. There are far to many of the fat lazy smelly bastards already. For the odd few extra tickets they write their cost far exceeds their worth.

The obvious awnser is ticket barries it works on the underground. For £500k you could set up kings cross properly and put the revenue inspectors to work flipping burgers in macdonald where the cunts belong.

Written heading towards king cross in first class hoping the wi fi holds up.

I agree, we could do with some extra help to ease the pressure on guards for ticket inspections. With the new despatch matrix also saying rear 3 coaches at Peterborough heading north there is even less chance of getting all the way through standard unless you have a ticket examiner on board for the same reason as in my previous post.

From what I can gather there are plans to install barriers at 8 NXEC stations, and i'm led to believe these include Kings Cross and Peterborough.

I could make a mention of the fare structure was created when the system was privitised - but that doesn't fit into our idea of the history of the railway.

Some interesting figures I've worked out.

KX - PBO = 76.5 miles.
KX - Stevenage = 27.5 miles

Assuming you travel to/from work 5 times per week, 45 weeks per year the season ticket works out:

KX - PBO ANY PERMITTED 16p per mile
KX - PBO FCC only 13p per mile
KX - Stvge ANY PERMITTED 22p per mile.

So those Stevenage people pay more per mile to cram into those lovely Nat Express seats AND they don't get a lovely seat reservation.

Well yes we could start in standard then what happens, is then you have the reverse, passengers realise that you start in standard, so they will then go sit in the 1st class and take benefit from that.

Yes there should be more ticket examiners on the route but try putting that to NXEC rather than just moaning about it on here, or are you convinced that every NXEC Bigwig logs on here to see what you think about them,maybe they should?

Tickdet examiners do actually work on trains that stop at stevenage, but they have specific trains which they have to work they cannot just pick and choose.

The 1k you pay each year is because you live further away, you are just assuming that every single person that travels to stevenage has a "Dodgy or wrong ticket" its a wrong assumption, i have been through many trains in my time that have Stevenage passengers and they had correct or purchased tickets, you cannot assum that just because they travel to a shorter destination that they must be fare dodgers, like you cannot assume that eceryone who sits in coach B and travels to Peterborough is a fare dodger also,

why cant stevenage passengers go on a nxec service, there ticket is valid and if they have a gold card they can sit in first class for 3 quid.
if you aint happy get on another train! or better still get in your car and drive.. or live nearer to london, i cant stand you poxy commuters moaning! feel sorry for joe one trip blogs who has to pay over 60quid to travel from pbo to kxc if they did between the peak hours.

season ticket holders have it too cheaply..

With regards to my comments about Stevenage passengers being Chavs and cretins. Well Peterbourough commuters are chave and cretins that cant afford to live in Stevenage or grantham. Worst of the lot really. Small minded pretentious arseholes as this blog proves.

The only thing worth doing in Grantham on a Saturday afternoon.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOP07z4HrB4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOPo7z4HrB4

Badwolf - "Well yes we could start in standard then what happens, is then you have the reverse, passengers realise that you start in standard, so they will then go sit in the 1st class and take benefit from that."

Ummm, have you thought of mixing it up a bit. You know, sometimes starting at the back, sometimes at the front. Then the regular standard class fare dodger, or first class chancer wouldn't be able to rest easy?

Anyway, most trains I travel on seem to have two people checking the tickets. Why not start one at the front, and one at the back, and work towards the middle. Or both start in the middle, one work towards the front, one towards the back.

This appears to be some way short of rocket science, so why isn't it done like this?

Or is it more than your job is worth?

First then you are lucky to have two people checking your trains, a lot of trains go out of London without Ticket Examiners, a gurads matrix has to be in a certain posistion in a train to dispatch for safety so your for ever running up and down the bloody train.

I would love to have any of you whinging whining season ticket holders to come out on the trains, then you may not think its such a fucking easy ride, we not sat in our comfy safe offices all day, and have some muppet sit and tell us its more than our "jobsworth".

When you can argue with faredogers, get swore at, physically assualted, then you come back and tell me how much its a "jobsworth"

Webbie or Fentyke could you start a thread on disabled travel as I would like to make a few points.

Thanks

Sarah

Badwolf, you aren't the old chap who works the 18:33 out of London are you? He too seems to have an extremely short fuse and is prone to escalating disagreements with passengers far out of proportion.

The train isn't *that* long is it? I can appreciate if it is packed it's difficult to get through the carriages, but you could adopt your best official stern voice and hurry through the train in no time I reckon.

If you happen to be at the front of the train on arrival at a station and need to be at the back to dispatch it, can't you just walk briskly down the platform? If I get off coach B at Peterborough I reach the stairs near coach L (I think) before the train has departed, and that's ambling. Get those limbs moving! )

firstly no im not on the 1833, so i have no idea who that is.

Secondly,"the train isnt that long is it?" well yes it is 9 coaches long and yes it can be busy especially when numpties with their advance purchase are either on wrong train, or have not got Ticket/reservation,or stupid knobs who put them in coat/bag, then stick on the overhead racks...why has logic not kicked in, when you get on train get ticket out ready, its not rocket science.

Then you have people who wanting to buy tickets or upgrade their tickets ("no i didnt hear the 3 announcements about saver tickets not being valid i was too busy listeining to my ipod".

So yes in an ideal world we could all breeze through the trains, but while we have incompetent mupppets travelling on our trains things take longer.

The 10pm from Kings cross last night saw a ticket inspector be rather rude to a group of three young men.

It was a pleasure watching them thump the jumped up penis.

To the rest of you I say be civil or your turn may come.

So when we have wanker passenges be rude to us it be okay if we smack in the head with our metal t-keys?

I don't care how rude anyone is it should never become violent, and the sick fact is that you sat and watched someone getting hit and say "You enjoyed it"

Lets hope one day you dont need someone to come to your aid when having the shit smacked out of you

Kick my arse again? I dont fancy their chances, but if they wanna give it a go no worries.

I still stick by the belief that violence is not on under any cirumstances and if that makes me ignorant then that makes us two of a kind Razor