Author Topic: The RANT thread (often contains fruity language) (Read 2961994 times)

barakta · « **Reply #21300 on:** 13 September, 2018, 09:52:24 am »

I bought ticket from West Midlands railway.
Train I wanted was run by Cross Country.
No idea who is responsible for network resilience.

Info provision was on national rail's database. Staff told me some trains were running but websites claimed otherwise and it wasn't clear if they'd get to a point and become buses or how delayed they'd be even if they could skip the blockage cos the info provision was shite... The websites should have been much much clearer "we can do X to Y skipping A and B with delays of C to D"...

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #21301 on:** 13 September, 2018, 09:57:02 am »

Network resilience as a general thing would be down to Network Rail. As to the rest, I'll be back in a while.

barakta · « **Reply #21302 on:** 13 September, 2018, 09:58:14 am »

Yeah, a pox on all their houses.

Oh well, at least my boss was nice about it. I think she appreciated me not risking being really late and emailing in so someone else had time to read the student prep info before the assessment.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #21303 on:** 13 September, 2018, 10:40:27 am »

Quote from: barakta on 13 September, 2018, 09:52:24 am

I bought ticket from West Midlands railway.
Train I wanted was run by Cross Country.
No idea who is responsible for network resilience.

Info provision was on national rail's database. Staff told me some trains were running but websites claimed otherwise and it wasn't clear if they'd get to a point and become buses or how delayed they'd be even if they could skip the blockage cos the info provision was shite... The websites should have been much much clearer "we can do X to Y skipping A and B with delays of C to D"...

If you were travelling with or intending to travel with XC that's who you should lodge your complaint with. Information on delays and cancellations is provided by each TOC and should be displayed automatically if the station is also run by that TOC, otherwise it's up to the station to update the displayed information. I don't think XC run any stations. If you were delayed or stranded at Birmingham New St, that's run by Network Rail. You can find out who runs which station: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations_destinations/default.aspx

tiermat · « **Reply #21304 on:** 13 September, 2018, 01:57:39 pm »

Quote from: barakta on 13 September, 2018, 09:48:21 am

Why does the UK rail network have so many single points of failure.

Why is information provision about train failures so utterly useless?

I am now down £100+ including for work done cos I couldn't GET to work. Had I known last night (incident started 3pm yesterday) I could have found alternative routes...

I am now looking for who can refund me that loss cos I'm fucked if I'm sucking it up cos we don't have a resilient rail network and we can't do basic info provision.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFVXsjVdvmY#action=share

Bear with it, it gets there, eventually, but the section about London Transport is fascinating!

ian · « **Reply #21305 on:** 13 September, 2018, 02:28:57 pm »

Resilience costs money because you need redundancy. That means stuff and people sitting around. No one wants to pay for that – not the train companies, not NR, not the government, not the taxpayers, and not the passengers. It's frankly cheaper to allow for a certain level of failure. I'm not sure why communication is so bad, but I can guess. It never improves despite the promises of lessons learned.

All you can get is delay-repay from the ToC you bought the ticket from, at the agreed limits. No train company is going to accept liability beyond what it has to, so you won't be getting back any lost work or time. They're not liable for you being late.

barakta · « **Reply #21306 on:** 13 September, 2018, 02:37:57 pm »

I am more annoyed at the lack of prompt information. It should have been obvious yesterday trains were disrupted but nothing till I got to New Street this morning. If I'd known yesterday I could have rerouted or saved myself work I can't ethically claim time for now. Even knowing before I would left would have saved me physical exertion on a dodgy hip that I don't need right now.

I apparently can try and complain to the ToC about their info provision so I'll try that. Disruptions happen but the info given was worse than useless, I still don't know if trains made it through and when cos every website contradicts the others.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #21307 on:** 13 September, 2018, 02:45:10 pm »

XC will probably try to blame the station operators (Network Rail if it was Birmingham New St) for not displaying their information. Who will presumably say XC didn't provide it promptly.

barakta · « **Reply #21308 on:** 13 September, 2018, 03:00:26 pm »

It was the online info which was rubbish. BHM's was surprisingly good.

I don't think it'll work, but I can try. I'm £100 down whatever I do, anything I get is an improvement on that. And I am cross at the lack of clear info about what was and wasn't running. I don't think the trains I was told were running actually ran. It's a good thing I didn't try and travel into it cos I'm cynical!

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #21309 on:** 13 September, 2018, 03:09:56 pm »

Ok, online info is a different matter. Here is a decent place to rant about such stuff, and also get advice about complaints and similar, not that you need advice with it!

jsabine · « **Reply #21310 on:** 14 September, 2018, 12:27:09 am »

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk is a very useful website. It'll give you historic running information if it's helpful to suss out which of yesterday's trains actually went somewhere, and for the future it's probably the most detailed source of what the train companies think is going to happen, before it gets filtered for public consumption.

barakta · « **Reply #21311 on:** 14 September, 2018, 01:44:53 pm »

I have realtimetrains.co.uk although its info was changing through the day and giving "No report" for the broken stations but not clear if there were 2 trains one up to Brum, and then another between Leicester and Stansted. I suspect that the train I was told went through, didn't... We'll see what Cross Country say tho.

Oh well, got double assessments on Monday so will definitely have work for next week

SoreTween · « **Reply #21312 on:** 14 September, 2018, 07:21:58 pm »

Ahhhh crystal clear Italian sunsets over the Mediterranean, sitting outside eating great food, sipping wine and gagging on the stench from smokers.

GN: they'll die young.

ian · « **Reply #21313 on:** 14 September, 2018, 09:22:23 pm »

Once upon a time I was sitting in a park and about to dislocate my mouth around a most marvellous sandwich when a young woman came and sat beside me. And promptly lit a cigarette.

It just happened that at the time I was suffering from a case of intestinal distress, a pressure that was asserting its freedom. I was jiggling from cheek to cheek to keep it in because normally, as a man of tentative virtue, I would have clamped down such an independence claim. But as the waft of foul nicotine breezed by my nose, well, what the hell, I relaxed.

The monstrous, thunderous guff that I emitted shock the very ground. Birds fell from the sky. Schoolchildren screamed and ran to their mothers. Even the stone eyes of Robert E. Lee watered*. And the smell. O the smell! It was like a day-3 Glastonbury toilet had Micheal Eavis had relocated Glastonbury to Hell for the year and ordered all the food concession to sell only beans. A filthy miasma that actually burned through the nose like hot acid.

She took the reverse maxim 'run don't walk' to heart. I didn't feel nearly as bad as I should. Though I didn't really want my sandwich any more.

*Yes, that park. Possibly that fart foreshadowed future unpleasantness.

CAMRAMan · « **Reply #21314 on:** 14 September, 2018, 09:43:25 pm »

Virgin Media: I 'upgraded' my router to your 3.0 version specifically because you told me it offered more sophisticated IP/MAC address filtering. Yesterday I set up MAC filtering and pressed 'Apply'. Not only did it filter the machines I asked it to, but it filtered out the two I specifically excluded. On calling to get out of the jam you had caused, you said. 'Oh, MAC filtering doesn't work; filter one machine, filter all...' so WTF don't you disable the 'feature'? Twunts.

rusky · « **Reply #21315 on:** 19 September, 2018, 12:08:17 am »

I am so angry that the RANT thread doesn't even come close!

Our domain provider deleted ALL our DNS entries. MX records, A records, TXT, CNAME everything.

I have all of them squirrelled away with other important info but it seems that they deleted them late afternoon given the propagation time & when we actually noticed an issue.

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #21316 on:** 19 September, 2018, 07:00:00 pm »

Concur:
Flight to SVG cancelled so I'll only need 1 night in the hotel, not 2.
Go to Concur. Options are 'cancel' and er, that's it.
Try adding hotel to itinerary (with the idea that if it works I press cancel on the old reservation, you can tell how much faith I have....)
Computer says 'no, that didn't work for unspecified reasons'.

Try calling the hotel. They won't deal with me cos it was booked through an agent.

Find CWT travel agent number, ignore dire warning about cost for out of hours service. Operator can't find my hotel reservation on the system, even though Concur gave me a reservation number.

Eventually they phone the hotel and the reservation is found and changed. 18 mins on the phone later.
While if I'd booked it straight on the Scandic website I could have change it online in minutes, like my colleague (who is high up enough that he laughs in the face of travel policy and books everything direct himself) did while I was standing the queue to get my flight changed.

ElyDave · « **Reply #21317 on:** 19 September, 2018, 08:19:14 pm »

when are you off to Stavanger? I'm in Hammerfest Sunday/Mon/Tues, then in Stavanger from tuesday night for the rest of next week.

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #21318 on:** 19 September, 2018, 08:28:36 pm »

Was supposed to be today but now going tomorrow morning and home Friday night (hopefully), so no chance of a sneaky beer I'm afraid!

ian · « **Reply #21319 on:** 19 September, 2018, 09:19:50 pm »

Are you people like some kind of reverse vikings?

ElyDave · « **Reply #21320 on:** 19 September, 2018, 09:54:28 pm »

The name, and avatar should give it away.

It's Neilson btw

hulver · « **Reply #21321 on:** 04 October, 2018, 11:31:01 am »

Fecking Halifax credit card.

Sending me a letter "dated" 24th September, which I don't get until the 1st October, telling me that you're changing the way you handle direct debits after 27th Sept isn't very useful.

Previously you took payments already made off the direct debit amount. Given that I've paid you £700 over the month for large purchases as and when I did them, plus for the previous balance (which I pay in full every month) to then suddenly change your procedures and take a further £400 out of my account today (when I expected you to take £0, as I've already paid you) is really taking the piss.

I understand you want to change the way you do things, no problems there. Doing it with 3 days notice when I've already paid you money is taking the piss and I want the bloody money back. You've not left me enough money to cover other bills you bastards.

Torslanda · « **Reply #21322 on:** 04 October, 2018, 12:28:20 pm »

Can't you cover them with the aforementioned credit card?

<Runs> <Hides>

T42 · « **Reply #21323 on:** 04 October, 2018, 12:30:08 pm »

Bellow at them for an interest-free overdraft until things return to equilibrium.

rafletcher · « **Reply #21324 on:** 04 October, 2018, 12:54:02 pm »

Quote from: Torslanda on 04 October, 2018, 12:28:20 pm

Can't you cover them with the aforementioned credit card?

<Runs> <Hides>

'Twas what I thought too - use the positive balance that is now on the card. Though I suspect some will be other DD costs that can't be covered that way.