Dear Southwest Trains,
We seem to be speaking quite regularly these days don't we? For three years we've had this sort of love/hate relationship where you have disdain for me as your customer and I have apathy for you as my rail provider, but I do think your recent performance is worthy of a second critique.
I tend to catch a half five train, this means I have to leave work bang on five o'clock or I miss it. So it's safe to say I do rush on my way back to Waterloo as you only run two services an hour and the idea of standing around a train station for thirty minutes is, believe it or not, not particularly attractive a prospect. I have nights that I don't make it in time, often due to the tube but those are unavoidable so I don't see the point of being stressed about it.
Last night however I rushed back to Waterloo with a colleague of mine who takes the same train on occasion, she had dinner plans so we forewent our regular Monday walk which pushes our train time back by an hour. Upon arriving we boarded our usual train and after a little deliberation sat in two middle seats facing each other. We did consider standing instead, but thankfully we decided against it.
I say thankfully because not long after sitting down we heard an announcement telling us we would be delayed as there was a problem at Wimbledon. Oh well, we decided to stay put even when we were told this delay was indefinite based on a lack of information provided to the driver of the service. About ten minutes passed and suddenly a huge amount of people from the train on the next platform disembarked and hurriedly boarded the train we were on. I looked askance at one of these "new" passengers and she said they had been informed the train was being diverted and would no longer be stopping at Surbiton, which ours was. Fair enough, total pain for them but at least they had our train to swap to.
I jokingly said to my friend that next thing we'd be told that our train was probably only stopping at Guildford due to rerouting, I didn't realise you were listening for suggestions and putting them into action!
About twenty minutes after the train was due to leave the doors closed and we pulled out of the station, which to me seemed like we'd gotten off lightly, as we had now found out the issue was a fatality at Wimbledon and I'd thought the delay would be much longer. I was, at this point, actually almost impressed with the service you were providing! I really should have known better shouldn't I?
Within about thirty seconds of the train leaving the platform, as in on the move and no longer able to get off from, the driver came on the tanoy to very kindly inform us that this service's first stop would be Weybridge... Seeing as at least fifty percent of the train's occupants were planning on disembarking at Surbiton surely this piece of information would have been significantly more useful to them if you'd shared it prior to leave the station?! All I could hear around my was the sound of people complaining and my friend cancelling her dinner plans.
A few moments later the train pulled into Vauxhall and stopped at one of the platforms. You know even after all the ineptitude you'd shown up to this point I still had an optimistic attitude and assumed you'd open the doors so people who didn't want to go miles out of their way could get off! Yep, wrong again! We sat there for about ten or fifteen minutes while people stared hopefully at the doors willing them to open before getting moving once more. We were rerouted through Teddington, Staines and Egham and just as we were approaching Weybridge there was another announcement. The first stop will now be Byfleet and New Haw. You are joking right?! So you've already pushed people past their desired stop without the option to get off and find an alternative route and now you're taking them even further away?
When the train finally made it to Byfleet and New Haw, bearing in mind we'd been sat on the delightful contraption for around an hour and a half at this point, we had the fun and excitement of having several hundred people get off and need to make their way (in the rain) down an open platform incredibly slowly, under the track and then back up the other side to another open platform in the rain. Thankfully a train pulled in around the time we made it onto the opposite side of the station, but I'm sure you'll understand that this didn't exactly improve our mood towards your inept company by this point! Do you realise that some people were so turned around as to where they were and had been on the train for so long that I heard someone suggest that they thought we were somewhere near Winchester?! That is how little information was provided as to what was going on.
Oh and please let me share with you what the crawl through the underpass was like.
Does that look fun?! Oh and the correct answer is no, in case you're unsure...!
Cue several hundred people squeezing back onto an already busy train with soaking wet floors which were by this point incredibly slippery and made me very grateful for a pole to grab before I ended up on the floor just to polish off the oh so lovely commute I was experiencing. A couple of stops later I was at my actual desired destination just in time for a delightful walk home in the pouring rain and walking in the door three hours after I left my office.
I do understand that someone going under a train is not your fault, however the way you handled the entire incident was poorly thought out, incredibly inconvenient to a large number of your customers and just generally about the poor level of standard I am learning to expect from you.
Let me guess, no refund?
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