On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 18:41:43 +0000,
Paul Corfield wrote:
On 15 Dec 2006 10:06:41 -0800, wrote:


Paul Corfield wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6182027.stm

Seems the government have kicked GNER off the East Coast franchise and
are going to retender it.

What a mess and in some ways a shame as I've found GNER to be a pretty
decent operator - admittedly from a small sample of journeys. I know
there have been lots of issues with delays and overhead problems which
may colour some people's views.

I've used them a fair bit KX-Durham.

My only gripe is that, on any Sunday that is going to be very busy
(e.g. weekend of Great North Run) the seat reservation printer has
"broken" and there are no reservations.

[snip story]

I have to say that your experience is not at all good. If I was booked
in first class and was unable to get a seat I'd be a tad livid.

Fortunately, it hasn't happened to me. I've only been on two trains
where it has happened to people (and I've known about it). One was the
overbooking first class and the "broken" seat reservation printer which
is inexcusable and the other was a gas leak at Doncaster (might have
been Darlington) where it was utter chaos; trains cancelled, rerouted
via random places, wierd changes, special trains and there was about
four trains worth of people on one train and not enough seats in first
class which can't really be helped.

But regardless of whether it's first class or standard class, if you've
booked and paid in advance and got a seat reservation then assuming that
all the scheduled trains are running then I think you should always get
a seat. Usually this works, even if a 225 has been replaced with a 125 -
sometimes you have to listen to the announcements to find out where your
seat/carriage has been "moved" to.

The Virgin trains have seat reservations on little LCDs as well as
tickets so I presume they don't suffer from "reservation printer broken"
syndrome. I wish GNER had added something like that when they did the
refits.

My only other peeve is that GNER will no longer carry trikes. Perhaps
that's my excuse to buy a trice and buy or make some sort of large
suitcase that I can tow as a trailer and then fold the trice into to
bypass the rules.

But I can't believe that any franchise that takes over the East coast
line will do anything more than, at best, continue the status quo and,
more likely, restrict it further.

Tim.


--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

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