Wrongly Assumed Facts by Passengers

[Starmill]

The WLL isn't *always* cancelled

For a period of several months last year, it would have been very close to accurate to say that it were 'always cancelled'.

 

[PeterC]

Just providing a departure time isn't really an acceptable answer though... Different companies have different definitions of "peak" so it's not always as obvious as it seems!

Perfectly reasonable for a non specialist to regard peak / non peak as a binary value.

 

[AlterEgo]

Your boarding pass will though.

About 50% of the time, in my experiences across 300-400 sectors and about 50 airlines, it doesn’t.

 

[stut]

About 50% of the time, in my experiences across 300-400 sectors and about 50 airlines, it doesn’t.

Yeah, it peaked in the 90s with computerised airport check-in, but with advance online check-in and dynamic gate allocation, it's less likely you're going to see it.

Of course, mobile boarding passes are good for this, they can update with the gate information as it comes in...

 

[TrainfanBen]

That station renovation will actually be an improvement

 

[neilmc]

... that people who sell tickets and check tickets must know the conditions attached to that ticket, and won't lie outright to your face when they in fact haven't a clue.

 

[Ianno87]

To be fair, most of us have an interest in the railway so can deal with the oddities of the system.

To the average member of the public, a lot of the rules and way of working can be extremely confusing. For example, I remember going to the station with my wife from Banbury to Birmingham. I pointed out the Manchester train from the main departure screen and my wife said "how do you know that train goes to Birmingham - it only shows Manchester up there" - this made me realise that it can be confusing for the average person on the street.

That said, there does seem to be a detached moral compass for some members of the public - that's it's okay to 'pinch' a seat on a train, but wouldn't dream of taking a Mars bar from Tesco.

Classic one is at [say] Manchester Piccadilly, to board the "front train only". Well, most on this forum know that that means "furthest from the buffer stops". But some uninitiated could easily take "front" to mean "the one in front from my perspective as a walk onto the platform from the main concourse" (i.e. the one closest to the buffer stops)

 

[WelshBluebird]

Classic one is at [say] Manchester Piccadilly, to board the "front train only". Well, most on this forum know that that means "furthest from the buffer stops". But some uninitiated could easily take "front" to mean "the one in front from my perspective as a walk onto the platform from the main concourse" (i.e. the one closest to the buffer stops)

Even worse are places like Bristol Temple Meads where lines can be bidirectional and services can split then reverse direction. Which end is the front of the train when it comes in one way, splits, and leaves the other!

Or at places like Cardiff Central where trains are prepared for use a bit further up from the normal part of the platform it stops at. So what you'll get is a train due at say 15:30, pull into the top bit of platform 2 at 15:22, spend 5 minutes being prepared there then move down to the normal part of the platform to actually pick up passengers. I've lost count of the number of times people have walked up to the top end of the platform when the train first comes in. Doesn't help that the information screens say "arrived" and announcements are made to say the train on platform 2 is etc.

 

[stut]

That all trains stop at Finsbury Park / Clapham Junction / insert station of your choosing here. I'd be wrong if there wasn't a certain amount of Schadenfreude each time someone ended up in Biggleswade after insisting that no, it does stop in Finsbury Park, they just say that because they don't want you to get on.

That platform 9a is part of platform 9. Or that platform 9a is not part of platform 9. Or, maybe 9a is part of 9, but 9c isn't? I don't know. What's that expression again, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds."

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

Perfectly reasonable for a non specialist to regard peak / non peak as a binary value.

I thought this until I booked a ticket from East Croydon to Brighton and was very confused by all the different rules for “off-peak” and “super off-peak” tickets.

 

[F Great Eastern]

That the train is full and dangerously overcrowded and surely a disgrace and an example of private greed after getting on the front of the train from a London Terminus when I can walk down the length of it and have almost a full carriage to myself.

That we have the worst train service in Europe.

That The Trainline will save you lots of money versus buying direct.

That there is less capacity than there was before privatisation.

 

[Julia]

That when the TOC advertises free wifi, there isn't some sneaky catch such as "only when booked via our specific website"

 

[WelshBluebird]

That when the TOC advertises free wifi, there isn't some sneaky catch such as "only when booked via our specific website"

Or "We'll slow you down after 20MB of usage" (which is now less than ten average websites!)

 

[IainG81]

Not realising that 4 car trains don't go to the end of the platform and end up running back about 50 yards then it dawns that it won't be going that far.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That platform 9a is part of platform 9. Or that platform 9a is not part of platform 9. Or, maybe 9a is part of 9, but 9c isn't? I don't know. What's that expression again, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds."

We really could do with a consistent approach to that, ideally not to use a/b/c etc if it's a separate platform, so they can be used Swiss style (ideally A-F) to delimit platform zones. Or if we do want to use them for that, *not* to use them to delimit long platforms and to use something else like north/south/east/west or similar.

 

[Z12XE]

A common one - that all connections (even stupidly short ones) are guaranteed and that each train should have been held any amount of time for another

 

[Raul_Duke]

That train drivers are all on £60k+

 

[sefton]

I find it strange that some passengers:

Are surprised -

• When all staff go into hiding at the first sign of disruption
• When staff on barriers haven't got a clue about the validity of tickets
• When a member of staff on an information desk claims to have no knowledge of their employer's train services
• When the train company is not embarrassed about the awful new trains they introduce
• When the train company 'plays at trainsets' when it sees perfomance targets are more important than customer satisfaction

 

[jon0844]

It's been said two or three times already but I think it okay to say again: that Trainline is a good place to buy tickets from.

 

[AlterEgo]

It's been said two or three times already but I think it okay to say again: that Trainline is a good place to buy tickets from.

I think this is probably one of the top misconceptions. It is literally never ever the cheapest place to buy from and it is always more expensive than buying from the TOC directly.

The marketing really is insidious. When I worked for VTWC the VTWC booking site, run by TL, was *exactly* like Trainline in every way except the buttons were red and not green. Yet customers when told they could save at least £1 by booking with us directly, that Trainline ran our site and the only difference was we didn’t (in fact, couldn’t) charge a booking fee, responded by saying they preferred the “layout of the Trainline site”! It was the same site!!

 

[infobleep]

Drivers deliberately go slow.

That would be true in Belgium at least!

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Why "some"?

NRCoT Conditions 3.3 and 31 together gives one the right to a partial refund if there were no seats left in First Class.

..there are operators that do not have first class

 

[Stigy]

That they are allowed to be drunk, insulting and aggressive, because they have a ticket. Which by all accounts will permit their travel in such cases.

That the ticket is theirs, rather than the TOC's.

 

[GatwickDepress]

• When the train company is not embarrassed about the awful new trains they introduce

Eh? This just comes off as wibble.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

A misapprehension he encourages to be fair.

along with being responsible (at the time) for the WCML improvements

 

[Y Ddraig Coch]

Your boarding pass will though.

Definitely not

 

[sefton]

Eh? This just comes off as wibble.

Great Northern boasting about their 'wonderful' new class 700s yet everyone knows they are awful, including Govia managers when you speak to them.

They should stop defending them on Twitter and point the finger for the poor decision making where it belongs.

 

[ComUtoR]

700s are awesome !

 

[6Gman]

That they are allowed to be drunk, insulting and aggressive, because they have a ticket. Which by all accounts will permit their travel in such cases.

And its companion, "the staff member was rude and had a bad attitude".

 

[F Great Eastern]

That the 700/800 interior are the result of penny pinching by profit seeking fat cats
That train operators have full control over the specification of rolling stock.
That TransPennine Express deliberately only ordered 51 Class 185s
That TransPennine Express deliberately avoided lengthening their trains.
That 'one' had a good livery.
That Private Companies have free reign without any government interference.