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I f you’re familiar with the Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman) novel The Long Walk , you’ll know the basic premise: 100 contestants take part in a gruelling contest led by a totalitarian regime, in which they must walk at a steady pace of four miles an hour without stopping, for days – until they are the only one left. Which is an awful lot like the way it felt for me recently, travelling from London to Cumbria and back again on Britain’s creaking rail system . I set out, not knowing how long it would take me – or if I would make it at all – with a heavy, sinking feeling in my chest.
I was determined to get to the end of my journey, but knew before I even set out that it would be beset with pitfalls : delays, road works, the simple fact that it was Sunday (when nothing works). In the end, it was a surprise “security check” that had all trains completely cancelled and my journey time doubled from six – to a full twelve – hours. Avanti now owes me a £148.50 refund for the outgoing leg – it chucked everyone off at Lancaster after inexplicably cancelling the train to Glasgow while we were on it – but is “currently experiencing high volumes of claims” (I can’t think why).
Northern , meanwhile, has already stumped up the same amount for my achingly long journey home. So, the news that Avanti West Coast services are about to be nationalised by Andy “fixed the buses” Burnham really couldn’t come soon enough. Because while “Britain is broken” might be an irritating maxim co-opted by the intentionally divisive Reform UK, who use it to denounce immigration, when it comes to our railways, it’s actually true.
For more from Vix, sign up to her Independent Women newsletter – a weekly dose of smart, sharp and unflinching stories on the issues that matter most. So, if we all feel furious about (and have personal experience of) horrific delays, patchy on-board WiFi and journeys where you can't make it to your reserved seat, because the train before you was cancelled and the carriages are backed up so far that you're having to sit on your bag next to an ever-revolving, fragrant toilet door, why do we all – still – choose to travel by train? We know that trains have the potential to be more satisfying – nay, even more enjoyable – and take the stress out of travelling by car (they're also far more climate-friendly).
So, perhaps the real challenge for Andy Burnham is to make the experience feel better. And while the vital infrastructure is being fixed (as the transport secretary Heidi Alexander said this week, the nationalisation effort will coincide with infrastructure upgrades aimed at cutting delays and boosting the passenger experience – but that will take time) then a short-term fix to boost customer satisfaction has got to be based on the little things: improving WiFi so it actually works; making sure people who have booked seats get to sit in them; banning anyone who listens to music or TV aloud on their handsets; hell – even bringing back a functional tea cart. Make it all run more smoothly, within the parameters we find ourselves in, and make it at least feel like value for money.
Rather than passenger resentment starting the moment we splash out £250 to stand in the aisle for 12 hours. As the PM put it: “Enough is enough. For years, people have been expected to put up with Avanti’s cancellations, delays, overcrowding, and a service that has failed them time and time again.” No s**t.
It really has reached the point where we just assume British rail is going to be prohibitively expensive (is it even possible to get across the country for less than £100?) and isn’t going to work, anyway. The journeys feel like torture – and we probably shouldn’t be at the point I reached, in Cumbria, where I had to risk my personal safety to get home. I was forced, in fact, to choose between waiting alone on an empty station overnight, where there would be “more trains tomorrow”, or getting into a car with a strange man who offered to drive me to Bootle, to then get a lift with another stranger to Barrow-in-Furness, where there “might be more trains running, if you’re lucky”.
Luck? When it comes to reaching your destination, I’d trust the kindness of strangers over British rail...
Source: The Independent
