This a nightmare. I am on the 1524 cross country train service for manchester to southmpton. I was aware of the disruption this weekend, the maintenance at Rugby has caused a whole host of problems, however it seams someone has forgot to tell the rail companies what is going on.

In the past 3 months have probably made no less than 10 return rail journeys from London to the north, I know what a busy train looks like, I know which trains might be busy too however I accept that these passenger numbers maybe somewhat unpredictable and the timetables must go ahead as planned. In such situations I can almost tolerate the odd ride in a Vestibule end. The fact is that out of these 20 rail trips I have had a seat in around a third of the journeys. That, I feel, is unacceptable in itself, however this weekends episode has sent me over the edge.

Has someone neglected to tell train operators that services would be disrupted and trains would be busier than usually? I got on the train in Manchester under the impression that disrupted service meant above average passenger numbers and a few people in the vestibule ends, I was ready for this, what I wasn’t ready for was the 30 other passengers that I shared the floor space with. After 2 stops I was angry, I had to record this, I walked the length of the 5 carriage train in around 8 minutes, after hurdling passengers and luggage I was amazingly short of breath.

The final carriage was a spacious first class area and in the final carriage stood the train manager who had the cheek to say its was my fault. The camera doesn’t lie, in his own words it was my fault and the fault of passengers like me who choose to travel on a Sunday. He basically implied that we shouldn’t have travelled at all, that was reasonable of him right? We should all not travel because train companies cannot develop contingency strategies for the weekends when passenger numbers are expected to be higher than usual. To put things in context, I am not ignorant enough to suggest that train operators do not forward plan, I can see they do through extra football trains for example, I am saying though the plans put forward for the weekend of 29th/30th November were inadaquate and incompetencies must lie somewhere within the organisations in charge of creating the alternative timetables that are in use when engineering works take place.

Its been a few days now since my train journey from hell, and I have calmed down a little but I thought I should finish this blog anyhow. When I asked the train manager about my ticket he replied I had payed for carriage only, and my journey was re-routed so it took longer, have the train companies not considered lowering the price of the tickets? I have the same product to a lesser quality, the product I received was (perhaps) unforeseeably damaged, will I get a refund? I think not. The billion pound project on the west coast mainline should help put an extra 150 trains on the track, it should also be finished by christmas (unlike last year) otherwise they face a million pound fine. Will our services get better? I hope they do because right now it is unacceptable.

To be faced against a wall for 2 hours is unacceptable by our pricing standards. To have women and children climb over people to access the toilets is also unacceptable. The carriages got more and more packed towards Birmingham, one extra carriage would have seen people get to their destination and not be turned away from the trains. I can’t think what else I can say about this, I am not one to complain but this I feel is totally unacceptable and I can only hope the trouble now will save time, money and energy in the future.