I was at the cafe the other day chatting with Darren (he resurfaces every few years for a catch up and cup of tea!) about something that drives all of us up the wall—train cancellations. It’s one thing to deal with delays, but when the train just doesn’t bloody well show up and you’re left holding a useless ticket?
Yeah, well, that’s maddening. Enough!
There’s something else. Even though you might not have spent a lot on the ticket, you often can’t refund your ticket because, in many cases, the ticket doesn’t meet the minimum value required for them to process it. If you want a refund, you’re normally expected to send the ticket by mail to Derby as recorded delivery. Maybe you can do it online, but if you’re just going to Nottingham, that’s £4.60 you won’t get back. Over time, this adds up to what could have been several nice lunches at my place!
That all reminds me of this time when my husband, our friend Martin, and I were coming back from Skegness. We’d just gotten off the train at Nottingham, when we heard the announcement—our train to Ilkeston was cancelled. Now, Nottingham to Ilkeston was our only way home, because that’s where Martin’s dad was supposed to pick us up.
So, what were we supposed to do?
My husband and Martin were ready to throw in the towel and walk up to catch a bus. But not me—I wasn’t about to let it slide that easily. I walked straight into the information room, or whatever they call it now, and made myself clear. “Our taxi is cancelled,” I said, “so I’m going to say it one way only: I need a ride home and I ain’t paying for it.”
The woman behind the desk didn’t argue. She just said, “Well, okay, not my fault.” And I thought, I don’t care whose fault it is—our train was cancelled, and we paid our tickets all the way to Ilkeston. We had an agreement with the train operator and they broke that agreement… and not for the first time.
We ended up waiting for two hours, but in the end, they did get us a taxi all the way home, paid for by the rail service. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
I couldn’t remember which train service it was—maybe Northern, maybe EMR. It’s hard to keep track when both of them have different refund policies. Sometimes they’ll lay on a bus when a train’s cancelled, but even then, those buses don’t always turn up. The idea of people standing around waiting for a bus or train that never comes is comical to people in countries like Germany where that stuff just works as it should.
A group of lads who came into the cafe one Saturday morning. They were heading to Sheffield for a match, but their train got delayed. So, they stuck around, had some food, and tried to wait it out. But the delay just kept dragging on. They ended up spending hours in the cafe, waiting for a train that seemed like it might never show.
And it wasn’t just them—another group came in later, also waiting for a train so they could get to a concert. Hundreds of pounds spent on tickets, and all they could do was sit and wait, hoping the train would eventually turn up.
It’s times like these when you wonder, would re-nationalising the rail service make things any better?
You’ve probably seen those adverts on tele for British Rail, but what does all this actually mean? What’s the promise they’re making? To drive down ticket prices? To make things run properly? The government guarantees a lot of things, don’t they?
But look where we are now, and I say that generally covering the last several years, and regardless of which party happens to be in power now.
The rail service was privatised to make the trains run on time, and here we are, still waiting.