I live in a part of the country that is pretty much cut off from the rail networks i.e. we don't have trains. We used to and the countryside is marked with the old rail lines, abandoned stations and viaducts. The idea of travelling by train for me is still, therefore, a romantic notion deeply routed in nostalgia for my home town when it was thriving with mills and cinemas and local shops. I soon discovered, however that my image of rail travel, mostly coloured by the Railway Children, is a loada rubbish. In January I travelled from Edinburgh to London along the beautiful east coast in the dark with a drunken rage strutting up and down the aisles singing Kasabian or some other generic lad-indie shite. I was no happy, it was fairly unpleasant. But after watching Dispatches: Train Journeys from Hell tonight it seems that I got off lightly.
Presented by one of my favourite people, Richard Wilson (you know, Victor Meldrew), whose own hellish journeys were interspersed with amateur footage of everyday passenger experiences. Dispatches were investigating why the British rail network has the highest fares in Europe while having the biggest government subsides. Bizarre, no? Overcrowding is also a massive problem (amazing fact coming up, get ready) worse in fact than when troops were demobbed and sent home after WWII. Mental.
The real shocker is the fares. The extortionate, ridiculous, a figure plucked from the air, fares. They're so ludicrous that there's no logic to them. Because the train companies are privately owned the fares aren't regulated. One woman tells Wilson that her season ticket was 4 grand. 4 FUCKING GRAND. The stations and tracks are publicly owned so our taxes are paying for the railways as well as our massive fares. I mean, what's it all about, Alfie?
The situation is so daft that a lot of the moments with Wilson are just funny. Like the automated booking service which requires some bizarre RP accent in order for you to book any tickets. 'No oiks on our trains please!' Wilson also resorts to sitting in the loo for one journey as he says, 'it's better than nothing.' He's an excellent host and he even throws in his famous catch phrase a few times (calm down, I'm saving it till the end) which just makes me love him even more.
On top of everything, once the extortionate fares are paid a lot of the stations and trains are ancient and dilapidated, so not only is your journey miserable because you're significantly poorer and the you can't sit down for your two hour commute, the train also stinks like a tramps musty sock. But hey! It's OK! At least the trains are on time, even when they're late(?) It's a swindle. A con. A jip, I tells ye! I mean I DON'T BELIIIIIEEEEVE IT!
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