New Year - New Chaos

9.00.00pm GMT Wed 5th Jan 2005

Central Trains have excelled themselves so far this year! I know they have been hot by industrial action by there is little excuse for quite how bad they have been this year.

On Sunday it took me over an hour to get from Birmingham New Street to Wolverhampton. Whilst Tuesday morning I was able to get to work, the return journey from Walsall was in fact a bus - though no one at the station bothered to put up any signs or make an announcement! Today, however, Central Trains truly excelled themselves this morning they cancelled the train to work and then re-instated it for thirty seconds when it came in a left before the passengers could get across to the platform, it then took me two and half hours to get from Walsall to Shrewsbury, mainly due to the incompetence of the station staff in Walsall - a train was advertised on the platform, a train came in which I got on, but then they switched platforms whilst I was on the train without making an announcement, this was followed by mass confusion at Birmingham New Street. The train back from Shrewsbury to Wolverhampton was cancelled at 10.05pm without any replacement bus or anything - the only choice was to wait until 11.25pm, oh and of course no apology!

Central Trains are losing their franchise later this year, that date cannot come fast enough as far as I am concerned.