What a lousy day it has been today for me... and to top it all off I am more than likely about to get my ass kicked all around the managers office for being a "racist".

Doing two ound trips from Portsmouth to London on a train is bad enough. The job was nearly 10 hours today although all the work was express trains and none of these stopping services. So anyway onto the topic of the rant.

"... white fat f***ing racist..."

Coming back from London on my last working of the day, I am checking tickets as any good conductor should. Now people who have a railcard are meant to buy their tickets at a ticket office before joining the train, so I was enforcing this, and declining any requests for the discount unless they apporached me with a reasonable excuse.

One gentlemen wanted to demand his (now uneligable) discount. Now I have many friends from a range of ethnic backgrounds, but this coloured gentleman started to try and argue that I was only refusing him the discount because he was black and that I was being racist.... well what he actually said was that I was a "white fat f***ing racist". Fine by me... he alighted at the next station, got agressive and put a complaint in! He still was not getting back on MY train.

You can see which side the managers will fall on.... the customer.

SWT Waterloo train drivers to strike.

So anyway my other topic of conversation affects our suburban commuters. The train drivers at Waterloo have long had a local agreement (they are the only depot to have one) that for their really early and really late shifts they get subsidised taxis from their home to Waterloo station. Some started taking the mickey and were soon to be getting taxis from as far away as Coventry, Peterborough and even Bournemouth (10 minutes away from the local Bournemouth drivers depot!). So the company decides that it is going to remove this facility for the 40 or so drivers that still use the service (new drivers are not offered this facility), and 200 are now going to strike this Tuesday and Thursday.

Mainline services are unlikely to be affected as other depots will have sufficient staff to covers trains onf the Portsmouth, Southampton, Weymouth and Salisbury lines, but disruption is expected on SWT suburban services.

Stabing on Virgin XC train

Most of you in the UK will probably by now have heard about the gentleman stabbed to death on a Vrgin Cross-Country train in West Lancashire yesterday. This surely re-opens a debate of safety of the staff and passengers on the railway.... bring in scanners at major stations, have undercover police on trains, train the staff in self-defence and weaponless combat (or guns, whichever you prefer)

I think its mad that people feel the need to carry knives around with them, and hope this guy is locked up for a very long time... I bet the Virgin Train Manager (guard/conductor) was filling his kecks at the though of what would happen if HE was asked for a ticket!

Well rant over... I am off to prepare a report for this complaint going against me.