… Gets the Grease, as my Mum always says.

In the interests of fairness, I should publicly say that I finally got my refund from The Trainline.com, on behalf of Virgin Trains. I also got a reply to my original complaint to Virgin Trains themselves.

Someone from The Trainline saw my posts on here about the ‘issue’ (I know from my visitor monitoring software) and what do you know, I got an email from their ‘Customer Service’ department offering to assist. They duly (and very quickly, too!) refunded the money I was owed, plus a small extra sum for my inconvenience.

Virgin then replied to my original complaint, and enclosed a £20 rail voucher valid for twelve months, as an apology for the delay in sorting out my problem. So not a bad result in the end, but one does have to wonder just how long it might have taken if I hadn’t been in the fortunate position of being able to make my complaint more public than many people could.

Anyone who has read this blog before will know about the trouble I’ve had attempting to get a legitimate refund from Virgin Trains – or their website operator The Trainline.com. Well, I’m likely to have to travel to London and Southampton a number of times over the next few weeks, so I’ll need train tickets, which got me thinking … Remember – You can buy a train ticket from ANY rail operator for any UK journey.

So, I’ve started work on a list of those Train Operating Companies (TOC’s) that do and do not use The Trainline.com for their booking agent. I tried to find this information myself earlier today, but couldn’t, so I figured I’d go ahead and work it out for myself.

It doesn’t claim to be a particularly scholarly piece of research; I went to each operating company’s website and tried to buy a ticket, then searched the source of the page to see what system they use. To be honest, once you’ve seen a few, it’s pretty obvious.

Here begins my semi-definitive list of where to book a train ticket without having to go anywhere near The Trainline.com. I can’t guarantee that the others are any better, but they surely couldn’t be any worse …

So, do they or don’t they?

• Anglia Railways – RailEasy
• Arriva Trains Wales – They use TheTrainline
• c2c – They use TheTrainline
• Chiltern Railways – ATOS Origin
• Cross Country – They use TheTrainline
• DirectRail.com - RailEasy
• East Coast Trains  - ATOS Origin
• East Midland Trains – wasn’t working when I tried to use their system
• Eurostar – No, but you can only book Eurostar tickets
• First Capital Connect – They use TheTrainline
• First Great Western – They use TheTrainline
• First Hull Trains - They use TheTrainline
• First Trans Penine Express – They use TheTrainline
• Gatwick Express – No, but you can only book a Gatwick Express ticket
• Grand Central – They use TheTrainline
• Island Line (South West Trains) – They use TheTrainline
• London Midland – ATOS Origin
• Merseyrail -  RailEasy
• MyTrainTicket - Assertis
• National Express – They use TheTrainline
• National Express (East Anglia) – They use TheTrainline
• National Rail Enquiries – connects you to the relevant TOC website
• Northern Rail - RailEasy 
• QJump – They use TheTrainline
• RailEasy.co.uk - RailEasy
• Rail Saver - RailEasy
• (First) Scotrail – They use TheTrainline
• Southern Railways - ATOS Origin
• South West Trains - They use TheTrainline
• Virgin Trains – They use TheTrainline

There are two alternative booking systems to The Trainline in common use (thanks to the commenter below for allowing me to update this post) – RailEasy and ATOS Origin.

The list is nearly complete , but as I’m not totally obsessed and I do have other things to do I’ll finish it off over the course of the week. I could extend the research too, it occurs to me, by spending time working out who is cheapest for an identical journey. Hmmm, this could be time-consuming … but useful.

I stumbled on this today, while I was researching a new film that I’m making. It’s by film-maker Euan Preston.

It’s a grisly subject, but the way this has been filmed and edited is quite amazing, and shockingly effective. Be warned, it might not be suitable for those of a weak constitution. I’m still trying to get hold of a copy of the complete film, but this clip is probably enough for most people. It should certainly make you think about your driving, and the possible consequences.

Bertie – A Road Safety Film (Excerpt) from Euan Preston on Vimeo.

Euan has some good work out there … I originally found this because I was emailed a link to another piece of work by the same chap. This is far less traumatic, and shows what a creative mind can do with some fairly simple equipment … and a bloody good idea!

Hong Kong Time Lords from Euan Preston on Vimeo.

Has anyone reading this had problems trying to get a refund for a ticket that they bought using the Virgin Trains website?

I bought a return ticket for a journey from Liverpool to London, but the meeting I was travelling to was cancelled at the last minute. I called Virgin, and was told I could cancel the original tickets for a refund, and book new ones for two days later, which I did. I then sent the unused tickets to Virgin Trains to claim the refund to my credit card.

Virgin (or their agent, I presume) have refunded the cost of one leg of the journey, but not the other. After three weeks and three calls to their call centre, I still haven’t been able to get the other half of my money back. They are now claiming that they didn’t recieve the tickets – a ludicrous assertion as they have already granted a partial refund for one of them (both tickets were sent in the same envelope).

Has anyone else had problems with a refund from Virgin Trains? Also, is their online ticketing run by ‘The Trainline.com’? I intentionally didn’t use The Trainline because of stories I’ve heard and read about their customer service since they were bought out a couple of years ago.

I’m just wondering whether this problem is an isolated case of a cock-up in the system, or whether it’s indicative of the problems I’ve read about.

I wouldn’t mind quite so much, but the ‘manager’ I eventually got to speak to this morning sounded like he really couldn’t have cared less.

Update: it’s now March 27th, and despite two further calls to Virgin Trains and assusances that I will have my refund “within 4 days”, I still haven’t had a penny. Frankly, I don’t believe them anymore.

On Monday I’m going to try and speak to someone at Virgin in the UK, and also to Trading Standards, if they’re interested.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/foxypar4/2533571894/

In an incident almost as bizarre as the recent adverse weather excuses used by Merseyrail …

A bird dropping a piece of bread onto outdoor machinery has been blamed for a technical fault at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this week which saw significant overheating in sections of the mighty particle-punisher’s subterranean 27-km supercooled magnetic doughnut. (source)

Thanks to PopSci.com and El Reg for the story.

A guy is sitting in the bar in departures at a busy airport. A beautiful woman walks in and sits down at the table next to him.

He decides that because she’s got a uniform on, she’s probably an off-duty flight attendant. So he decides to have a go at picking her up by identifying the airline she flies for, thereby impressing her greatly..

He leans across to her and says the Delta Airlines motto “We love to fly and it shows”.

The woman looks at him blankly. He sits back and thinks up another line. He leans forward again and delivers the Air France motto “Winning the hearts of the world”.

Again she just stares at him with a slightly puzzled look on her face.

Undeterred, he tries again, this time saying the Malaysian Airlines motto “Going beyond expectations”.

The woman looks at him sternly and says “What the f**k do you want?”

“Ahhh”, he says, sitting back with a smile on his face, “Ryanair”.

This guy is obviously having a bad hair day …

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqQRKd5ShK8