Monday, March 16, 2009

A Marple commuter's revenge

We were given a questionnaire tonight at Piccadilly station. I filled it in on the way home, but all the questions were very specific about the train we were actually on, in my case the 18:06 to Rose Hill Marple.

It was on time, I got a seat and there were no fights or drunks or delays. Much as I wanted to use the opportunity to rant about unhelpful staff and aggressive GFS goons, patchy service, smelly toilets and the poor quality of the rolling stock I was skillfully prevented from doing so.

Tempting as it is to use writer's licence and pretend that the service was the worst it could be, or ever has been, I couldn't. For a start, I couldn't say the train staff were negligent. That might backfire on the very pleasant guard on the train today. I was asked about the facilities at Piccadilly, a modern shopping precinct, not local stations that have become neglected and soulless relics (Rose Hill, or Chinley, or Marple). I also like Tony the station master at Rose Hill (who I first knew when he worked at Davenport), a loyal servant of the long suffering commuter who does his job with pride and a warm sense of occasional humour.

Many questions were about British Transport Police and their reserve force. I am blissfully unaware of what they do, or whether they ever get on our train at all. I've never noticed.

I squeezed a few comments into the "owt else" box, but basically it felt like a very manipulative exercise.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I 'commuted' today from Holmes Chapel and once again was greeted by the always friendly station master, who is now offering hot drinks and biscuits for sale in addition to a fantastic free library. Sorry that I don't know his name - I'll make a point of finding out, but definitely a contender for "station master of the year". Now, that would be an award?!?