| Sorry Rocker....
.... but I was 'disgustED of TW' on Saturday night - and I know it's not your fault but..... left for a reunion 10 mins from London Bridge at 5.15 on Saturday night. Checked the online timetable beforehand. No mention of any maintenance works. Got to the station in plenty of time for the 5.36; should have got me to LB at 6.20ish, loads of time to meet them at 7, table booked for 7.30 (well it was that or an hour later which would have been cutting it tight). No sign of any of the trains on my timetable. Oh, maintenance works. Bugger. Next train to LB 5.40 via Redhill, what's that 30 min longer journey? Oh well, plenty of time. Time passes. Indicator board says 5.40 now due at 5.48. Just as well, queue for tickets about 20 mins long, only one chap serving and NOBODY else appears to be about. Indicator board now says train due at 5.48 will terminate at Tonbridge. Loads of people milling about wondering why there is no information about what is happening and why the staff seem to be hiding. Eventually discover that we will have to get bus from Tonbridge to Sevenoaks. Not looking good. Hang on a minute, apparently the 6.21 - the next train after the delayed 5.40 - will go straight through to LB. Just about get us there on time. Except indicator board says 'delayed'. How delayed? No idea and still no-one about to ask. By this time it is 6.10. The indicator board still says the 5.40 will be in at 5.48. Clearly not. So much for modern technology. We eventually gave up at about 6.20 when it became apparent that no-one was prepared to give us any information about the 5.40 or the 6.21 and whatever happened we wouldn't get there in time (and if we did, how the hell were we going to get home), resigned ourselves to not seeing the friends we'd not seen for a year for another year, got a refund and went out for dinner in Tunbridge Wells instead. Throughout the whole episode, the only member of staff prepared to talk to anyone was the guy selling tickets, but that involved queueing forever and a day and he didn't really do much more than look at the indicator board and tell us what it said. There was one other member of staff hiding on the other platform despite no trains arriving that side either. The indicator boards were worse than useless in that they made 'promises' which bore no resemblance to reality. There were loads and loads of people waiting patiently; I guess they had no choice. I've no idea when a train finally arrived; we would have heard it if it had been within 15 minutes or so of our leaving the station as we bumped into a mate and stood and chatted for a while...
So, rant over - if you are thinking of moving down this way Jon, be careful!  | 
Threaded Mode