If ever there was proof the RP treat some people differently to others, this is it.

I've got some relatives over from Australia staying at my mothers. They arrived on Monday afternoon and bought a train ticket at the airport to take them from Heathrow to Peterborugh. They arrived at Kings Cross in time for the 17.30, found 4 unreserved seats in coach G and sat down for the final hour of a mammoth 24 hour journey. Little did either of us realise that we were both on the same train. Them in Coach G and me in coach E.

Anyway, shortly after departure the RP guard, ticket inspector, call him what you will, started to do his rounds. He eventually got to my relatives, took one look at their ticket and told them the tickets weren't valid for that service and they would have to pay the excess. He then proceeded to get his book out and tell my exhausted reli how much it was going to be for 4 adults. At this point our Jim hit the roof. Being a plain talking Aussi he told the guard exactly what he asked for at Heathrow and exactly what he could do with his excess charge. On hearing his tale, the guard had second thoughts, took pity and waivered the charge.

On the one hand I'm quite pleased that the guard handled the situation in this way. He clearly lost out on a few quids worth of commission and he saved my relatives a good amount of money to boot. On the other hand, he should have charged them exactly the same as he would have done to a British National. Having said that, I personally think he did the right thing by letting them off and for that he has my thanks.

Onboard ticket checks.

I overheard one of the guards this morning, telling a fellow commuter that NXEC are trying to move onboard Revenue Protetion (Guards to you and I) to ticket barrier duty and cease ticket checks on board altogether. Could this be goodbye to Sean (who I now see on some early evening services) Matt and the other guards who I happen to think are good at their jobs.

Between St Neots and Stevenage? For past few weeks it seems to me that trains are slowing, often to a crawl, between St Neots and Stevenage and it doesn't matter what time of day you travel either. I've travelled at all times of day in the past 3 weeks and we always seems to slow right down in sort of the Biggleswade area. Even the 23.30 last last night slowed right down. I haven;t seen any signs of engineering work but that doesn;t mean there isn't any. But if this is, surely 3 weeks is enought to complete most things.

What is it NXEC have against the 07.17? In order or regularity, on any one day you can be sure that one or more of the following will affect this service: -

1. Its a 125 set one day, a 225 for the next 2 and then back to a 125 for the next 2. Either way we never know what type of train is going to arrive and are consequently unsure where to stand on the platform or where seat reservations are. In addition and as mentioned in earlier posts, the unrefurbed 125 coaches are a fucking disgrace. £5500 to sit on a 30 year old seat that's had every substance known to man spilt on it at some point in it's life. Fuck of NXEC. You should be paying us to sit in that squalor and your staff should be on double time to work in it.

2. No seat reservations. OK this affects nearly every service but it's still bloody frustrating.

3. It's late. Goes without saying really and I think you can guess how frustrating this problem is.

4. There's a coach missing (Usually C or D) which again means we have no idea where our seat reservations have been moved too. At least we haven't until we're pulling out of the station and they finally get round to telling us at the end of the welcome aboard crap. Why they can't tell us while we're stood on the platform is beyond me.

5. It arrives well early. Not such a problem at all and no complaints from me if it arrives early. I especially love to watch the people who panic and leg it thiniing that they'd better run because if it arrives early, it will leave early. Eh, no it won't it will leave at 07.17 so stop panicing, stop running and stressing etc and take your time.

6. Either the train is back to front or one or more of the coaches are. Staff must get a bit of a laugh watching passengers sqeeze past each other through the aisle as they traverse the opposite end of the coach were their seat no resides. I do.

7. It often arrives early into Kings Cross even if it arrived into Peterborough late. Again, no complaints from me for arriving early however it does highlight just how much time NXEC have built into the time table to help them meet targets.

All in all there is no consistancy with this service at all. Don't get me wrong it's not THAT bad a service as it is usually on time at both ends. However, as a commuter we never know what to expect which many find frustrating. Not me mind as I've got to the point where I find most of the so called 'problems' minor and it sometimes makes me chuckle listening and watching other passengers moan like buggary. I've also invented a little game to brighten up the morning where you have to guess what will be wrong with it each day. You get 1 point for everything you guess right and lose half a point for everything you got wrong. At the end of the week you tot up the score and see who'se won. Seeing as I'm the only one playing, I win most weeks.

I'm sick to death of how NXEC fail to comunicate with us passengers. Like thousands of other people I was heavily delayed last Thursday thanks to the Power line coming down between Stevenage and KX. Accepted, from NXEC's point of view they couldn't do anything about it other than wait for the lines to be fixed and look after their passengers. Sadly but not unusually, they failed miserably on the latter.

I would go as far to say that the information NXEC gave out last Thursday and on previous occasions when the lines are down, is worse than the info GNER used to release in similar circumstances. What you get when the TOC's fail to regularly update customers are thousands of commuters running round trying to work out what to do next. Honestly it's farcical. I've got to the point where I don't try and second guess to get home at a reasonable time. Oh no. These days I just run to a nice pub across the road and don't return to KX until gone 9pm by which time, things are a lot quieter and the lines are usually back up.

Here's another example of how poor NXEC's communication is. Whenever they fail to put the seat reservations out or when the 'LOOSE' a coach, NXEC know the minute it leaves to starting station that there is a problem with that service. Perhaps NXEC do call or send an email to every station that service is due to stop at between the starting point and the end destination to tell them what the problem is. But do they tell us while we're stood on the platform waiting for the damn thing? Nope. Twice this week the 07.17 has arrived with coach C missing, once with coach D missing and once with no seat reservations. 3 times passenegers have boarded not knowing where the hell their seat is and 3 times we have boarded into chaos. All it would take to avoid this situation is a short 'We are sorry to announce there will be no coach C on the 07.17 to KX. Passengers with seat reservations for coach C will find them in coach D', etc, etc. Clearly this is far to much trouble and clearly NXEC think this is far too much information for our tiny brains to cope with at 07.15am.

In the 8 months since NXEC took control of the ECML, I have to say service has gone down hill. Delays are up, customer satisfaction is down, prices are up above inflation, season ticket benefits are non existant. This is back up by the result of the recent Passenger focus customer satisfaction survey which you can find here http://www.passengerfocus.org.uk/news-and-publications/press-release.asp?dsid=1761. Of the 30 catagories, customers are happier in 3 of them, feel 4 are no better or worse than last year meaning NXEC are worse in 23. I could go on but I think you get the picture.

And no, before anyone gets clever, it hasn't expired. Just got wasted by the KX barriers, at a guess.

I'm kinda tight for time this week, and I generally have NO time at P'boro station on a morning OR evening. So, being vaguely smart, I thought I'd get it replaced at KX ticket office.

Guess what?

You can't. Because it was issued at P'boro it has to be replaced at P'boro.

Meh.