Mugging on the Orient Express

Travelling by train should be a peaceful, enjoyable and smooth experience in which one arrives at their local station, boards a train, finds a seat, reads a book, arrives at their destination, alights from the train, and goes about their daily business.

However, travelling with Southeastern is like tying a shoelace wearing oven gloves; it’s possible but unnecessarily hard.

Today I decided to get the 1053 as I had a meeting in Greenwich at midday. The 1053 gets in to Greenwich at 1132 should the stars align, and those pesky wet leaves keep off the rails. 

I left home at 1035, walked a kilometre to get there and arrived a few minutes before the train was due to arrive. I had upheld my end of the bargain. Before I could even ask for an Off-Peak return to Greenwich, the cashier told me not to get a train as the next one wouldn’t arrive for at least an hour. Pardon? Yep, I’d be better off getting a bus (a what?) to Dartford and getting a train from there.

So off I went. A few minutes later a wagon turned up, I jumped on and immediately found out that Fastrack buses are cash only. Excellent. Fortunately a very kind lady paid my £2.30 fare and I made the most of the free on-board WiFi (can you drop me at Greenwich please, mate?) en route to Dartford.

Fifteen minutes later we arrived at Dartford station. There were no staff on the ticket gates, which were left open, and I got to the platform just in time to wave goodbye to the only train that could have got me to Greenwich before midday.

This meant a twenty minute wait at the celebrated Platform Two (Mick Jagger and Keith Richards met there in 1961 – there’s a plaque and everything). I can’t tell you how grateful I was that I brought The Book of Dust with me.

I bet their train was delayed

With thanks to the majestic Lord of the Trains and sheer luck, a train arrived that promised to be travelling to Greenwich and I reluctantly boarded it. You may wonder why I wasn’t enthralled. Well, it had come from the west rather than the east and I did wonder whether it was going to take me all the way back to Greenhithe like a cruel game of Snakes and Ladders. Fed up and beyond caring, I boarded the train, immersed myself in Philip Pullman’s brilliant world and accepted whatever fate was to become me.

Two minutes after I was due to meet a very important person I arrived at Greenwich, albeit at the wrong end of the platform (you wouldn’t believe how often I get on the “wrong” end of the train). I managed to reschedule the meeting for 1pm and quickly got my affairs in order.

On top of my to-do list was “Claim Compensation”. This can be done through Delay Repay. All you need do is take a picture of your ticket, fill out a few details and, if you’ve been delayed by more than half an hour, you’ll get a small amount of compensation. It’s not much but it holds Southeastern to account for their terrible service and I like to think that their CEO cries each time he has to pay me £1.60.
"On Time" means "less than 5 or 10 minutes late" which makes no sense

If you enjoyed this article, frankly I’m worried for you. You will be pleased, however, that I am going to be documenting each journey over the next month and reporting my findings in a blog post in mid-December. I am also going to send it to Southeastern to hopefully ruin their Christmas party.

Long live the revolution.

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