CX Heroes & Villains - VILLAINS
TRANSPORT AGAIN
The recent dearth of my "Heroes & Villains" articles are due to a paucity of Heroes stories. I have a whole string of Villains stories awaiting publication just waiting to be matched with a Heroes tale. Despite the pile up of Villain stories, I am jumping the queue with a personal story froma few days ago.
Having spend the day in Birmingham, I arrived at Kings Cross for the easy (!) journey to Hitchin. However the overhead cables were down and chaos quickly reigned. The (barely audible) advised passengers to Hitchin and Stevenage to go to St Pancreas and catch a train to Luton. This I did, but at Luton the two guards told me that this was a mistake at Kings Cross and that I should go back to St Albans where there would be a bus replacement service. I was hesitant to do this but when they assured me that they had sent earlier passengers back to St Albans, I assumed they were correct (if rather disinterested) and did as they had suggested.
At St Albans the disinterest was even greater, except that the staff wanted to tell me of their problems - "we have no supervisors or managers on duty, they've all gone home and no-one tells us anything". They knew nothing about the problem at Kings Cross but told me that I should go back to Luton and they had already shuttled a few others off in this direction. Reluctant to be a human long-distance ping-pong ball any longer, I asked them to get some official confirmation. One of the ticket inspectors made several calls (most of which were unanswered) and was eventually abe to tell me that I should go to Luton and catch a bus to Hitchin - apparently it was not a replacement service but the local bus would accept the train ticket and not require a fare.
I subsequently dragged myself back to Luton where Bedlam reigned! There were about 100 people wanting to get to Hitchin or Stevenage but not knowing what bus to catch or even where the bus stop was, A staff member managed to direct us an duly a bus came along. It was cleary not large enough to take us all but, in any case the driver was not etting us on without payment as he had not been informed of the situation. After protests from the masses, he telephoned his depot, and then let us board. I managed to get standing place for a very bumpy and incomfortable ride.
Although the bus was full and all the passengers were going to Hitchin or Stevenage, the bus travelled not directly to these destinations but followed it's normal route through housing estates and Luton Airport but no-one wanted to get off and no further passengers could be taken on-board.
I arrived at Hitchin about four hours later than panned. I appreciate that incidents can cause delays on the railways and that safety has to come first. However, it seemed ridiculous that the railway and bus staff were so ill-informed and unprepared. I am sure that it is neither the first or last time that problems at Finsbury Park affect Kings Cross departures, but there seemed to be no joined-up contingency plan.
Anyway, I have got my personal rant over. I will soon be back to "Heroes & Villains" nominated by others - keep sending your stories in - especially about the Heroes out there.