A bit of background info: My flatmate and I work in the same place, so we car share. Last week she had a long weekend in Wales, taking her car with her...

So I had to endure British Rail. I hopped on at my local station (which has no barrier or ticket office) and for once there was no inspector on the train. I got off at Clapham Junction, changed trains and at my destination there is also no ticket barrier and there was no inspector on that train either.

"Great," thinks me "Saved some money!"

So I spend the day pretending to work whilst dogbombing, and when my working day finishes I go back to the station.

Still no open ticket office and no inspector on the train. I change trains at Clapham to get back home, and the train is unbelievably crowded due to it being rush hour and (surprise, surprise) a train was cancelled with no explanation.

An inspector gets on, and proceeds to push her way through the passengers, asking for tickets.

She gets to me, and I ask for a single from Clapham. She asks me why I haven't bought a ticket. I say it's because I assumed there would be an inspector on the train. She calls me a liar, accuses me of jumping the barriers, and tells me she's going to fine me.

I point out that if I had jumped the barriers, there would have been some kind of announcement, the police would have been called and I would be in trouble. I would not be explaining myself in a calm, collected manner.

She pauses and thinks for a moment. Then she demands to know how I got on the train. I tell her I changed trains at Clapham. She says she's going to have to charge me the full fare from where I first got on the train. Fine, says I. She looks in a big, dogeared book for the fares, flicks through a couple of pages...

...and gives up, charging me for the ticket I first asked for!

What the fuck?

Honestly, why should we pay inflated fares for a rapidly decaying transport infrastructure like this? It is infrequently on time, staff are rude and don't do their jobs and it's filthy. Recently £20 milllion was given to the London Transport Museum, to glorify the (admittedly excellent) history of the railways in this country. That money could have been used to help make the system decent, instead of telling disinterested schoolchildren how great it used to be.

There's no real point to this, I'm just venting spleen.

Perhaps if everybody paid for their journeys, the system might have more money to spend.......just a thought.

i'm glad i don't have to deal with this kind of shit. The only type of public transport around here is

some shitty taxi service that nobody would use unless they needed to get their drugs.

the amish horse and buggy's OR

the nice cows and horses that you see every 5 feet here!

Apart from the £20 mill they spunked up a wall?

I do agree, which is why I had no problem in paying both fares. But the inspector didn't bother to do her job, so why should I bother paying for a crap service. I don't have a moral leg to stand on here, but the whole system really pisses me off. I can't believe the authorities think that London Transport can handle an Olympics! It can barely handle day-to-day passengers.

I've heard that in Denmark there is a guild formed by passengers. They pay a small monthly subscription, and when they get caught and fined, the guild pays the fine. The passengers are not all going to get caught at once so they keep paying a sum far less than the price of the ticket.

Im with Gentreau, im kinda glad you had to pay, and only sorry you didnt pay properly for a service you have used.

I have to say that I use the rail network regularly, and whilst you might say he should have paid, I will point out that on my journey, two stops at most, sometimes the next one, I have RARELY if any been asked for a ticket, and only occasionally has it been called for before leaving a station...

Now, sometimes I'm in a rush, I'll jump on a train, and i'll not get time to queue up for one when a train is just arriving... that's the fault of them, not me, and not wannabepornstar...

Thanks netniV. :)

salsa spouted:
Im with Gentreau, im kinda glad you had to pay, and only sorry you didnt pay properly for a service you have used.

The service is shit.

My whole point is this: I was willing and going to pay for the service (it may be crap, but I used it), but with no ticket facilities and a halfwit of an inspector, it all gets a bit difficult.

I am more than willing to pay for the quality of service I am provided with. When you go into a restaurant and get rubbish food served by a surly waiter which you have stood around and waited for with no explanation, do you leave a nice fat tip? Or do you pay the bill and exit, vowing never to eat there again?

Well, I always bought a ticket whenever I used the trains before privatisation. Not to do so is to steal from the public purse, and that would make me no better than the privatisers doing the same on a much bigger scale. Since the privatised companies took over, though, I avoid paying for a ticket if I think I can get away with it. The money that I pay is not used to improve the service or pay public servants who care about the railway, but to line the pockets of shareholders. If there's any left over, it might go to reduce fares, but that has not been the case so far.

The truth about modern railways is that most of the revenue raised to pay off directors and private shareholders comes from the public purse. We still pay billions of pounds of taxpayers' money to the 'private' rail companies depsite their continued failure to run the railways properly, punctually, cleanly or safely, indeed if they were doing their jobs properly we would not have to pay this money. And now the same way for the tube. I think that transport is one area where state monopoly works better than private competition.

Also, I will not queue for a ticket if it means me missing my train.

This might seem feeble and self-serving "Oh yeah, you don't pay for a ticket in protest, very convenient," but I'm sorry, that's the way things are.

Damn right. Fight the power!

Public transport is for unemployed scruffy uneducated poor people with B.O. nits ring worm scabies bad breath achne club feet and get drunk on meths!


Propper decent rich folk ( like me ) have cars and thankfully don't have to mingle with such low life trailer trash no hopers !




Got to go now ...........or I'll miss my bus to the D.H.S.S.