A Quick Train Tale from this morning ...

Here's a story in the Manchester Evening News

Closure of Oldham Line

Now earlier stories have also pointed out that not only are peeps from Oldham heading towards Rochdale for their "train fix", but also the 'other way' to Greenfield (i.e. the Huddersfield Line .. which goes through Mossley)

This morning I caught the (already crowded) 0724 to Man Vic (I always get off at Stalybridge for the Man Picc connection - so I tend to live with any sort of overcrowding for 5 minutes !). However the announcement came over the speakers on the train that "due to severe overcrowding the train will not be stopping at Ashton" - so anyone who wanted to go to Ashton was advised to get off at Stalybridge and wait for the next train ....

Now - despite this being peak time rush hour - they would have had to wait for OVER 40 MINUTES for the next Ashton train - quicker to bloody walk - and God hep those waiting at Ashton (I'm told that the train did actually stop at Ashton due to signals - and people were running down the platform and vainly pressing buttons to try to open doors - so no-one at Ashton even told them - probably to prevent a lynching of the train staff - although this may have happened afterwards ...) . Shameful, absolutely shameful - especially when you listen to the Northern Rail excuses that an extra carriage would not generate enough revenue to cover the costs (or "funding issues" - officially) - what hypocrites ! Happy to overcrowd 20+ year old trains to keep their margins up but ...

Like the story says .. this Oldham closure has been coming for a long time - yet no bugger has planned it through have they ... might cut into the profits ... and don't think First Trans-Pennine are any better - happy to trumpet their "increased passenger numbers" in the press, but you don't see any releative increase in rolling stock - I might get off a crowded Man Vic train @ Stalybridge - only to get on a similarly crowded one to Man Picc.

In short - they're all a bunch of thieving profiteering b*st*rds - and thank you John Major (yes it's not just redundancy, recession etc that can be traced back to Tory scum) for his last minute rail privatisation before getting stuffed in the General Election. Furthermore I notice that fares in London are going up - don't blame Boris (even though he too is Tory scum) - look at the moneygrabbers of MetroNet (OK the totally failed moneygrabbers of MetroNet - they grabbed the money but failed to deliver the goods) and TfL - and you the punter/customer - they don't give a sh*t. No-one even talks to you now - on trains and platforms - it's all deadpan, automated, soulless sh*t - "we are sorry" - no you're not - you recorded the stuff and probably made a nice few bob as well Mrs Announcer).

Look on the bright side - next Monday on that 0724 .. there'll be an extra two square foot of floor space - and similar on the 0735 to Man Picc from Stalybridge - yep where I used to be - one "bonus" of recession/redundancy eh customers ????
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