What a difference a day makes,
24 little hours!

For those of you that commute on SWT, you are sure to know by now that yesterday was chaotic, when a major fire closed down the London to Woking mainline for around an hour. The public were to an extent very smpathetic... I did not do a ticket check, being as we were around an hour late leaving London, but I did take a wander up and down the train, taking my machine with me so that I could use the onboard timetable to offer new connections.

Everyone was not happy, but they were subdued and sat watching the world go by, or keeping themselves occupied. ou would expect with the trains up the spout that they wold be looking for blood....

Then comes today.

All goes well, for the first hour.

I come to a station in the countryside. I am still checking some coaches for the first time since we left London as it is a busy commuter train. A well dressed woman (about mid 30's I guess) asks for a ticket to the next station. Later a second woman told me she had infact got on at London, paying around a fifth of the actual fare, and she does it quite often.

So we come into the next station, and instead of leaving the train, she goes into the toilet...shame I was watching her at the time! So I politely ask her to leave, and she casually forgot that she had infact parked her car at the NEXT station 20 minutes away and can she have another ticket.... Im sorry but lying once is bad, but TWICE!

She refused to leave the train so we had to call in the police to have her removed, 15 minutes later passengers were getting irate, at me for delaying the train, and at her for delaying the train. In the end it took two passengers to threaten to man-handle her off the train, for her to think about leaving the train, because my issue is quite simple: She was evading the fare. I also suspect that she evaded it in the morning, to get to work in the first place. If she gets away with it every day for a working week, she is evading £200 of fares, which 99% of the other passengers pay (whether the agree with it or not).

So anyway we leave, and all I then get is greif from the passengers on board that I held the train up for 15 minutes..... that will be the same passengers who will complain that the tickets have gone up double what they should because we are not catching fare evaders!

Its nice to see that the South West Trains strike by drivers at London Waterloo depot is still going ahead!

This Tuesday and Thursday, up to 200 drivers will fail to sign in for duty, and protest that they can no longer get subsidised taxi's from their homes to work at 3am or from work at 3am. Would this be the same group of drivers that originally lived in the outskirts of London, but decided to move to Peterborough, Milton Keynes and beyond?

Ahhhh so they got caught taking the proverbial!

Passengers will be pleased to know that like the last time, SWT intend to utalise Drivers Managers to maintain service. Thats the Drivers Managers that will probably only drive a train once every 4 months to ensure that they are still covered as competant, and insured to drive the trains.

Ahhh yes and they will probably use trainee drivers, who although know how to drive a train, have got very little "in anger" experience, although a trainer or manager will be with them to ensure they do their job properly.

I do genuinely feel sorr for the (mainly surburban) passengers, who have to put up with this nonsence. If it was pensions, job losses, or the consideration of Driver Only Trains (all SWT services currently have a guard... otherwise they do not run) then I could understand, but getting a free taxi, because you don't want to work at the local depot because its a different company??

What a lovely weekend it has been! The sun is shining the kids are in the street playing with SuperSoakers and hoses, and the world bows down to the World Cup! Oh by the way, I have succombed to BlogRanking..... aaarrrrgggghhhh

It just seems a shame that it also means I have torant about idiots who think the world is above them and because they want to be special that we have to treat them like royalty.... She was acting like a child though, and brought a smile even to my face!

Okay less description more story:

Many of you probably know my attitude by now, if people make an effort I will bend over backwards to help. If, like woman A, you join my train at London Waterloo, walk past me, and then try to buy a ticket with a railcard AFTER depature, you ain't got a hope in hell.

So this is what woman A did. Technically. I should have sold her a Standard Day Single ticket, but she wanted to come back the next day (today) so I let her have a discounted next day return, but politely refused to give her the railcard discount (Those of you with railcards will be aware that the terms and conditions state you must buy your ticket at the station where facilities exist), she paid, but was complaining that revenue at the other end would not notice, etc etc etc, called me a jobsworth and the variants. Her argument that a guard always comes through the train to issue tickets is flawed in that there are times when our machines fail, or there are none available.

Things were quiet for about an hour until gentleman B joined at Micheldever, a station in the middle of no-where with NO ticket facilities except between 6 and 10 in the morning Mon to Fri. He sat right opposite her...

gent B, is entitled to get a Young-Persons discounted ticket on the train. He had less than a 0% chance of buying it at the station, and is obviously not penalised for doing that. She did not like that one bit. I am now a f*ing jobsworth ct, who is intent on p***ing her off (apparently), a comment she loudly re-itterated when she left the train at Eastleigh.

So if you ARE reading this WOMAN A.... I am currently contemplating having 6 weeks on the sick for the mental scaring the names you called me caused. Oh and by the way, the audio was clear as day..... thanks for dropping yourself in it!

Anyway rant over.... sunny day, I am going to pla the computer.... bye!

But I do not remember what it was!

Hasn't it been a lovely weekend! The sun is still shining here on the south coast, and i am enjoying every minute, by being sat at the computer living my on-line life to the full.....

theres GOTTA be something wrong there!

I should have been out doing work for my second job, mystery shopping, but the website we use to pick up the work has gone down, something about the database being full, so until I get into that, I can not even head to Southampton to do that.

I would go and enjoy the delights of the beer garden, but the pub is shut until friday for refurbishment! I have had to spend the last 5 weeks getting on a bus to Havant to find a pub I am equally comfortable with. Not bad in the evenings because it is only £1.20 for a return ticket.

I gotta think about losing some weight! I am still 19 stone, cant get the scales tipping either way, even after spending 3 weeks only eating lettace and drinking water (except in the pub where I drink Whiskey and Lemonade), and it did not move a bit... I even tried one of those 50p-a-weigh machines to make sure my scales were working!

I am destined to be fat!

Oh well. Rant over, I am heading back to the counter-strike world for some fraggin!