It’s been a poor start to the commuting year. Let’s hope it’s not a portent of things to come.
First up, delays on all lines running into Liverpool Street, including the Stansted Express and trains from Cambridge and East Anglia. Not National Express‘ fault, but whoever was managing the Christmas works for Network Rail.
Disappointing, yes. Unexpected? Not entirely.
There is a tedious inevitability to over-running engineering works, and so reports of hour-long delays on all lines running into London Liverpool Street didn’t come as a shock. This is the third year in a row that the return to work following the Christmas break has been troubled.
Network Rail was fined £14m by the regulator for over-running works affecting the return to work in January 2008.
Strikes on Virgin West Coast
Virgin West Coast passengers, meanwhile – and particularly those who have held off on renewing their season ticket until the first working day of the year (never a good move) – have been affected by a one-day strike by TSSA against the closure of ticket office windows in favour of increased use of automatic ticket machines.
You have to sympathise with their sentiments, even if you don’t agree with their actions. Strikes are rarely welcome, and timing them for the first day back at work isn’t a good way to get commuters on your side.
However, the fact remains that automatic ticket machines can’t offer help and advice and can only follow a set script rather than hunting down low fares on your behalf.
Ticket office windows are a vital resource, but claims by TSSA union leader Gerry Doherty that ‘this is all about defending a vital service to rail passengers’ have a hollow ring when the strike is clearly timed to cause the maximum disruption to those self-same commuters.
