A new Facebook page has popped up angling for free travel on the Underground and Overground through the whole of January. Why? So that those who run the services can do more than just pay lip service when they tell us how sorry they are for the inconvenience caused by the frequent strikes.
From the page:
Sick of constant weekend closures, strikes, delays, Bob Crow, TFL, engineering work, meaningless apologies and upgrade or improvement works that don’t upgrade or improve anything?
Then sign up here. In return for the constant inconvenience they keep apologising for we passengers want free service on the tube and overground networks for the whole of January!
I briefly clicked the Like button on it, but then I had a think and I’ve unclicked it.
A month of free travel would be lovely, but I don’t see what difference it will make or how it will do any good. London Underground could only stop the strikes if it did what the unions wanted, and that’s not always possible.
Neither is London Underground necessarily to blame for overrunning engineering works which by definition require weekend closures.
While I’ll keep an eye on it, from a professional standpoint, I’m going to sit on the side where this campaign is concerned. If you want to check it out, you’ll find the page here.
Today’s tube strike is just a taste of things to come with the unions promising further action in 2011.
Rail fares are heading skywards next year. Atoc has confirmed an average increase of 6.2% for 2011, starting in January.
An answer to my question. I’d emailed to ask what ‘poor track conditions’ means, and it seems it’s a cover-all for general rail problems. I wonder if that’s a reaction to the general ribbing the train operators got to the ‘wrong kind of snow / leaves on the line’ excuses they gave years ago, as… Read more…
Is Orwell running the trains these days? None of my trips to or from work have been without problems this last week or so. Yesterday’s total morning journey took an hour longer than usual, door to door, and this morning it was a good 30 minutes over the usual stretch. Why? Well, this morning it… Read more…
In the run up to an imminent UK general election, the Liberal Democrats have put their name to a call to reduce train fares and force the rail operator to offer better compensation to inconvenienced passengers.