To most this will probably sound like a petty whinge and you'll probably say I should get over it. Perhaps your right but it won't alter the fact that I'm sick to death of how NXEC keep fucking about with the rolling stock they use for the 07.17 from Tinsel Town.

Firstly you can never be sure if a 225 or 125 will arrive. Secondly you can never be sure if the coach containing your reserved seat is actually there or not. If it is you can't be sure if it's the right way round or not. You can't even be sure if your stood on the correct platform until they tell you your not about 2 seconds before it arrives.

All in all you don't know what to expect these days which at 07.17 in the morning is a fucking right pain in the arse. No matter how tollerant you are, it's starts to get to you after a while and it's got to me.

There's an big, old fella who works at P'boro station who job it seems is to look after activities going on outside the main station building. I've seen this bloke at work on numberous occasions and his aproach to customer relations leaves a lot to be desired and his consistancy levels are non existant.

One day you might see him telling people they can't park in a certain place to drop people off, while the next he just stands there watching the same people comit the same crime. The next day you might see him telling customers they're not supposed/allowed to use the rear gate on platform 2 and the next he's stood watching as passengers open and exit via the same gate.

Whatever infringement it is that he decides to target that day, the one thing you can be sure of is that he will be very forceful and very rude. I watched and listened to him bollocking some poor bloke who had commited the heinous crime of cycling 50 yards the wrong way down the one way street directly outside the staition. Talk about going ott the geezer realy went for this poor bloke stating that not only was it against the law to cycle to wrong way down a one way street, it was also very dangerous for himself and other passengers. It ended in a 2 way threatening slagging match between him and the customer which neither won.

Personally, I'd support this guy if he was consistant in his action. But he's not. It seems to me that he's selective as to what he wants to tackle and when he want's to tackle it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was responsible for ticketing all the motorbikes a few weeks ago because he was always moaning about the bikes that used to park where we now know we're not supposed to park. The bloke is just a jobsworth who is incapable of dealing with customers in a proffesional manor. I spotted him this morning stood chatting to an asian fella outside the Great Northern Hotel while he watched car after car pull up on double yellow lines to drop passengers off. Of course he did nothing but carry on with his conversation.

"The King's Lynn and Peterborough lines into London have achieved their best ever performance levels in 11 years. The Great Northern (GN) route achieved a Public Performance Measure (PPM) of 96.54% for the period between 27 April and 24 May 2008. PPM is the percentage of passenger trains arriving on time or within 5 minutes at their destination."

My last meeting of the day over ran yesterday so I didn't get to Kings Cross until about 7ish. At least I got there, NXEC didn't. The departure board was showing all NXEC outbound services as delayed and there wasn't one NXEC train in the station. There were no announcments to explain what was going on, why there were no trains or when they expected any to arrive. There was also a distinct lack of staff to ask. No doubt they had no information and chose to keep their heads down in the staff room.

Thankfully there were a couple of FCC trains sitting at the platforms and I noticed one was going to Peterborough. As it was only stopping at St Neots and Huntingdon, I opted to jump on and I'm glad I did because FCC got me home without a hitch.

I'm gutted. The KX redevelopement is finally having an impact because the Cornish Pastie & Costa coffee booths have gone. I presume they've been removed for the foreseable future but if anyone know if they've been moved or where, please let us know because I prefer a large traditional pasty to a fat fuled burger.

I thought I'd pop in and say hello. I've not written for a while, well, not since I moved down to the Big Smoke.

Fentyke - how the bloody hell are you?

On a call, so I must dash. I will pop back and catch up with all the ramblings and post a more informative message.

Take care.

Last Friday, Peterborough police were searching passengers for Drugs and knives at Peterborough Station. On site were aproximately 8 coppers, 2 sniffer dogs and 2 knife/metal detetcting gates sited just inside the main doors. They say they checked 160 people and found..... wait for it..... Zero knives. In the 6 hours they were there, they did however arrest 4 people for minor drug offences and catch a number of fare dodgers.

Guess what? They have declared the exercise a success. What bollocks. At best this was the right strategy in the wrong place at the wrong time. I certainly don't class 4 minor drug offences a good days work for 8 coppers or efficient use of such resources. I also question their claim that 160 people were checked because everyone I saw entering and leaving the platform via that main door was checked by both the metal detector and the sniffer dog. And I was only there for a few minutes as I stood in the que wondering what the hold up was for. What I think they meant was that the machine beeped or the dogged wagged for 160 people and all these people were thoroughly searched.

As far as I'm concered, 100's of people were inconvenienced, delayed and made to feel like a they were under suspicion of something they hadn't done. On top of that, it was more than possible to avoid being checked because the cafe doors were unmanned. Any crim with half a brain would simply exit or enter the platform from here if they wanted to avoid an unexpected search.

So commuters. We're not just moaning old cunts with too much money, Peterborough police also think some of us a re knife weilding, drug taking crims who deserve to be banged up.

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/Police-hail-39success39-of-railway.4354234.jp