I took the train from Haywards Heath to London last Monday, to attend a ColdFusion training day at "Scotch on the Road". As there's a variety of ways I could get from Victoria station to Gt Queen Street, I bought a one-day travelcard, at the outrageous price of £34. That's £34 - which once upon a time, I didn't earn in a day (thinking back to my student employment). A friend from Brighton was on the train, and he texted to say he was in the front carriage.
"Nice train" I thought as it rolled into the platform, so I got on, found my friend, and sat merrily chatting away. That is until the ticket inspector came round - a surly, jobsworth of a woman, who stared long and hard at my ticket, and announced that "you shouldn't be on this train". Oh! Why is that? I enquiried... "because this is the Gatwick Express" she replied.
Silence.
Erm.... okay... logic seems to have disappeared all of a sudden... "but it goes to Victoria" I replied. "Yes, but it goes via Gatwick" came her retort. "But so do all the other trains...".
Puzzled, I became even more confused as she tried to explain that the Gatwick Express is really just for holiday makers and business types, and the fact that it travels onto Brighton, and calls at other stations inbetween, is just an inconvenient embarrassment that they'd rather overlook.
This woolly-minded bimbling reminded me of the old service announcements you used to get, saying things like "Thankyou for travelling with Connex today". It's not a deliberate choice - or at least it never was in my case - it's just a train that turns up, going to wherever you want to go - so you get on it. I very much doubt that you get people who sit patiently at a platform, ignoring Thameslink trains, in order to wait for a Connex alternative. It's not as though there's a different line that you could take...
Unswayed by my suggestion that her argument held no water, she proceeded to announce that if she ever "caught me" on that train again, she'd charge me double the fare - no less than £68, to travel between Haywards Heath and Victoria, a journey of less than one hour. I just smiled back and said nothing, not wishing to goad the uniformed fascist into carrying out her threat.
The truth of the matter is, of course, that the Gatwick Express only used to run between the London stations and Gatwick, and that the only reason it ventures south of Gatwick now, is in order to meet the government target for the number of available seats on the London-Brighton line. It was a spectacularly stupid idea, compounded by the fact that the class 442 trains used for the Gatwick Express
didn't actually fit the curved platforms at Brighton station, which turned the new 2008 winter timetable into an utter farce.
Ho hum... stupidity abounds... my friend who was already on the train had bought his ticket the previous day, which meant that he could legitimately travel on the train... I sometimes wonder if we're becoming so caught up in red tape, that the Italians will become jealous for our lack of efficiency.
I can only point to Top Gear's episode from May 24th 2004, where they proved that it's cheaper to buy a second-hand car, tax the car, insure the car, put petrol in the car, and drive from London to Manchester and back, than it is to take the train.
Something for Gordon Brown to sort out in his last days in office? One can only hope.