More crap from First Crapital Connect - Now I'm treated like a criminal

Grrrrr......  Where to begin? Maybe we should start at 10:25pm last night, when I arrived back at St Pancras from watching iconic Punk band Wire at The Scala. I'd been planning to get the 10:32 train home. Sadly that was cancelled. So was the 10:48. So I could have had another beer and a longer chat with my friends. I wouldn't have rushed back for the 10:32, as I'd have known that I wouldn't be home in time for the babysitter, who I told I'd be home by 11pm. So I get home at 11.30pm and have to pay for another hours babysitting. First rule of First Capital Connect, they always cost you more than you think.

Anyway, so I get to bed later than I hoped and wake up completely cream crackered and late. I put on my work clothes and run down to catch the 7.46am train. All goes well until I get to City Thameslink. Damn, no season ticket. So I go up to the guy in the customer services and explain that I've left my wallet & ticket at home. "In that case I have to issue you with a penalty ticket - you must pay a fine". But I haven't any money. "Then I have to caution you and you have to pay it within 28 days". But I have a ticket at home "Then you have to supply proof within 14 days". Ok so how "You must post a copy to the prosections department". - "But you have all my details, my name is on the ticket". "That doesn't matter, you may not be who you say you are". They then ring up and check who I say I am. "So you can ring up and check that, but you can't check your own computer". "No, you may be someone else" - "Well if I am, you'll send the fine to someone else".

I then had to be "officially cautioned" like a common criminal, in front of a crowd of people. He asks me all the questions again "officially". I ask what I do to get home - he replies "buy a ticket and claim it back". So there you go. In FCC world, they cancel trains, cost me money, treat me like cattle. We've had untold delays recently. I make one silly mistake that they could easily resolve without any problems at all, but they'd rather treat me like Sh*t and humiliate me. Last night when two trains were cancelled, where were the "customer services" people? Nowhere to be seen.

In the old days of British Rail, there were no such things as penalty fares. You just bought a ticket and claimed it back. If you had no money, you supplied your name and address and paid later. That is what it says in the Railway Act. Sadly this bunch of cowboys have a whole different agenda. One where the passenger comes last and profit comes first. They make me sick. I pay them over £1,000 a year for this crap and there is no choice at all.

In the days of British Rail, the priority was always getting people from A to B. Staff had discretion and were not focussed on "rvenue protection". The amount of subsidies from the taxpayer was many times lower. There were 8 rush hour trains an hour from Mill Hill to the City. Now there are 5 or 6. When trains were cancelled, other trains had extra stops inserted into their journey. Sure things went wrong on occasion, but never for months on end.

When I bought the ticket at the start of January, I commented that it had gone up sunstancially. The bloke who sold me the ticket said "Blame Boris Johnson, he put the fares up". The Tories created the monster of the privatised railway. Labour had huge majorities and 13 years and did nothing to improve it. There is zero chance that the Con/Lib Government will either. Personally I'd like to see every commuter in London descend on Parliament and tell the whole bunch just what they think of them. There are millions of commuters who are treated like Sh*t every day with avoidable delays, huge fare hikes and crap with penalty fares. If every commuter in every London seat got off their arses and complained, maybe just maybe something would change. A mate of mine suggested that every single commuter buy shares in First Group and put a resolution to the AGM to suspend all payments to the board until they sort this crap out, it would soon stop. Any takers? There are plenty of people out there who could afford a few shares. That would scare them !!!!