London Banter - View Single Post - Stansted Express Train

Steph Davies · February 26th 04, 08:36 AM posted to uk.transport.london

(Mike Delorme) wrote in message . com...
Morning flight from Standsted to Rome leaves early (8am), so I got one
of the earliest trains (5:30AM) out of Liverpool St station for what
should have been a 45 minute journey (ETA Stansted 6:16AM).

We left Liverpool station at the appointed time (5:30AM), but had
lengthy delays at a few points on route. This "express" train arrived
1.5 hours late into Stansted airport at 7:45AM. By the time I got to
the checkin counter, the airline informed me that checkin had closed
some 30 minutes ago.

During this "express" journey, there was no effort from any of the
train crew to inform dozens of very anxious passengers about the
reasons for the delay, or if SE were going to quickly come up with
alternatives.

I took pity on the Express train's Customer Service Agent at Stansted
airport having to deal with a lineup of furious passengers, (she was
very good at telling everyone about how the problem was not their
fault) as well as airline CSR's attempting to rebook a mass of irate
people on future flights.

First and last time with this express service. Better luck to
everyone else if you decide to risk using them.

I can totally sympathise with you as I have been screwed over not once
but twice by the appalling Stansted Express and I too will never, ever
set foot on it again.

The first time it happened to me, the train caught fire!

This happened just outside Harlow Mill station, so we pulled in there
and waited for another train to shunt us to Bishop's Stortford. At
this stage, had we got off the train and into a minicab, we would
probably have made our flight. However we were told that the shunting
would take "just a few minutes".

The timetable for trains between Harlow Mill and Bishop's Stortford
shows the journey takes between 7-10 minutes /normally/ let alone when
being shunted at 5mph.

In the end it took 45 minutes to get there and we missed our flight
(with all the hassle and extra money that that entailed).

The second time they screwed us was when arriving back at Stansted.
We planned to catch the 10:30 PM train to Tottenham Hale. When we got
down on to the platform we found a very annoyed driver who told us
that they'd pulled the last few trains to start engineering work
early. A coach to Liverpool Street would be provided.

"But what about getting to Tottenham Hale?" I asked him.

"Oh, you need to get to Tottenham Hale do you? Well, that's where we
tend to **** people over," he replied.

That's an exact quote and he was right.

Their idea of getting us to Tottenham Hale was to dump us off a coach
at Liverpool Street, then tell us to catch a train to Walthamstow and
take a night bus to Tottenham Hale. I asked if they would give us
money for the night bus. The answer was no!

Stansted Express/WAGN are criminally incompetent, have appalling
customer service and are definitely to be avoided at all costs.