Click Liverpools "viloent doger"

While violence against Merseyrail staff is not to be condoned, in any circumstances, I’m not sure that Click Liverpool’s violence against the English language isn’t worse!

The article is here, although they may hopefully edit the headline to save their embarrassment.

Who the hell did they ask, that’s what I’d like to know. And where did they find the smiley-faced staff members, I wonder?

“Summary: They’ll get you to where you’re going on time as long as you don’t mind the unhelpful staff” (source article)

So, despite what the posters tell us, Merseyrail staff aren’t quite as popukar as Merseyrail would have us believe, are they?

You can read the full Merseyrail review here. In fairness to them, if you read all the reviews of Merseyrail going back a number of years, it’s plain that they’re getting better. Much better.

My point is that they’re not as good as they’d have us believe. If they spent less time trying to convince people how good they are, and more time actually working on the problems they have, they might piss fewer people off.

The new ‘Zero Tolerance’ approach from Miseryrail caught me out this morning – and a few others.

I arrived at Manor Road in plenty of time (unusually for me) to be greeted by a lengthy queue at the ticket counter. A woman was doing God alone knows what, I couldn’t hear, but she was getting money returned onto her debit card, and it took AGES. By the time she finished, the 8:26 to Liverpool had arrived at the platform, and there were still several people waiting to get tickets.

One chap asked if he could buy his ticket in Liverpool, to save him being late, but was told “no”. So that was it – the train left, leaving four or five of us to buy our tickets and wait for the next train.

This is why the new regime is ridiculous. Manor Road, and presumably several other stations, doesn’t have the capacity to sell tickets quickly at peak times (it was made worse this morning, I suspect, because it was this bloke behind the counter). A friend at work tells me she has to arrive at New Brighton with about 15 minutes to spare in the morning, to be sure of getting a ticket. That, frankly, is ludicrous.

If Merseyrail want to enforce ‘Zero Tolerance’, at least put ticket machines in the stations, so we have a chance to buy a ticket in a reasonable time frame.

And who suffers most from this new system? Not those who won’t buy a ticket – they’ll just get on like they used to, and take a chance. No, it’s honest commuters that suffer.

If Merseyrail had decent guards on their trains, who could be arsed to appear from their little compartments to check tickets, there would be no need for any of this. But no. The scrotes that jump on and off without paying have always known that they could probably get away with it, esprcially if they weren’t travelling to one of the Liverpool stations, so they’ve turned it into a major problem, and now we’re all suffering.

Anyone who regularly uses the West Kirby line will know that you almost never saw a guard checking tickets between Moreton and Liverpool, travelling in either direction. They used to pop out between Meols and West Kirby, where they were less likely to get any hassle.

I was seriously tempted to board the train without a ticket, and then offer to pay the £3:65 when I got to Moorfields, but refuse to pay the £20 fine. I don’t know what would have happened, but I’d be happy to try this, and have them take me to court.

Of course, Merseyrail couldn’t really care less. Not only do all their posters tell us how brilliant they are, they have a monopoly. So we’re stuffed.

Unless a few of us do something about it …

N.B. the funny bit about this morning is that the woman that was having the problems at the head of the queue never even got onto the train … she got her money back onto her card then wandered off out of the station. How gaulling is that?

Merseyrail are currently running a poster promotion that proudly announces to us that we apparently like their staff – although the very same statistics also suggest that a third of us don’t, but never mind.

Well, the guy at Manor Road this morning deserves a special mention. I’ll just call him Mr Blobby, to protect his identity. I missed my train this morning, thanks to your abundance of helpfulness mate. Thanks.

While I admit I was cutting it fine, I could have happily boarded the 8.11am train, tickets in hand, if you could have been arsed to stop leaning on the counter with one arm while slowly counting out my change, one coin at a time, with the other. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you did it on purpose…

It could be a new policy to ease overcrowding on the busiest trains. Way To Go Miseryrail

I note from the front of one of the local rags today that Hoylake is likely to get The Open again, in 2014.

I was immediately struck by a couple of thoughts. Firstly, well done Hoylake, it’s a nice place and will no doubt benefit further from an influx of golfing cash. And then it struck me … buy shares in Merseyrail’s owners before the tournament.

If they use the same policy as they did at Aintree, they could easily charge the punters a fiver for a £3.65 ticket, on the grounds of it being ‘easier’. I’m sure we would all think it was much easier. I do so hate having all that change hanging around.

I had a final thought too … if I’m still living in Hoylake and traveling to Liverpool by then, I’m going on holiday for those couple of weeks. I still have fond memories of being dumped at Birkenhead North last year because Merseyrail couldn’t cope with the Tall Ships Race visitors, so they helpfully cancelled all the West Kirby Trains. Much easier. And I wasn’t the only one …

IN ALL the coverage of the Tall Ships’ race and the numbers of people attending, there seemed to be no reference to the fact that Merseyside’s infrastructure once again collapsed.

Merseyrail’s Wirral line descended into utter chaos when this event must have clearly been planned for a very long time.

There were a number of cancellations at peak time, resulting in everyone for Wirral being asked to pile on to a New Brighton train. I changed at Birkenhead North where there were hordes of passengers waiting for West Kirby trains as three whizzed by for New Brighton.

Staff, as usual, had no answers, although one Merseyrail person offered the following:

“It’s not like the London underground, you know. We can’t cope with big crowds, we’re provincial”.

Pathetic.

Harry Miller jnr, Moreton

(source)

There. Much easier.