Well that....

Was another jolly journey into Stratford.

Today, I was given the opportunity to sit with a hyper-active knob-end, who got on at Hatfield Peverel and promptly started to empty his bag searching for something.

I've no idea if he found it, because he then pulled a Passenger Survey form out of a plastic sleeve and started to fill it in.

That done he then began to repeatedly remove, read and replace a stack of paper from a second plastic sleeve.

He carried on with that malarkey for the rest of the journey until just before we arrived at Stratford, at which point he decided to block the aisle while he repacked his bloody bag.

All the time that that particular madness was going on, I was being treated to sitting next to the usual gormless tool who continuously receives endless bloody emails on his Blackberry.

Instead of keeping bloody phone in his hand, this idiot insisted on putting it back in his trouser pocket after reading each new message. Why? No-one was going to steal it.

And to cap the misery, the train was 10 minutes late.

Still, nearly Christmas...

There are...

Few things less maddening than leaving earlier then usual in the expectation of catching an earlier Jubilee  Line train.
Only to then get onto the platform at Canary Wharf to discover the next train isn't due for almost 5 minutes, and worse, it's only going to North f*cking Greenwich.
Then to add insult, the next Stratford train won't arrive for another 3 minutes after that pointless North Greenwich one.
And all the time you're standing there seething, there's some gormless bloody female twittering on the tannoy that there's a "good service".  Bollocks there is.
In fact, I left work earlier tonight than I did last night and still managed, thanks to London bloody Underground, to get to Stratford later than I did last night.
That kind of incompetence takes talent;  the kind of talent that only the cretins who elected that fat, ignorant, moronic, thicko dinosaur Bob bloody Crow can lay claim to.

Another night...

Another delayed train because of NXEA'S piss-poor maintenance.

As usual...

Whenever there's an NXEA maintenance f*ck-up like the one we have tonight, the Southend trains never seem to be as badly affected as the rest of the line.

One's just gone through Stratford out of sequence.

Here we go again...

Every bloody train from Liverpool St is currently late by at least 10 minutes, well all of them apart from the untouchable f*cking Inter-Citys.

Piss-poor maintenance again.

Yet another...

Bolloxed mornings journey because of NXEA's piss-poor maintenance.

Dragarsing through Ilford again, 10 minutes late.

New franchisees.

Just seen in Metro, I managed to get one this morning, that the Dutch bidders have won the Anglia rail franchise to run from February.
Hopefully, they can do a better job than NXEA.

More problems...

This morning.

The 0812 is currently dragarsing it's way past Ilford.

By way of explanation NXEA sent this gem:

"The 07:26 will be delayed after leaving by about 10 minutes due to an unusually large passenger flow."

WTF is "... an unusually large passenger flow"?

The last time they used that excuse their solution was to start cancelling trains. It was f*cking surreal.

Their excuse for this train being 10 minutes late is much more believable:

"...General disruption along the line caused by an earlier train fault
"

Piss-poor maintenance in other words.

Only once...

This week, has whoever delivers the free Metro newspaper to Braintree station, provided enough copies to allow me to get my hands on one.

That was on Tuesday during the great  overhead wire catastrophe.

And only then because the 0727 was cancelled and everyone who would have been on it went to Witham.

By ten-past-eight they're all now gone. A sure sign more people are travelling these days. And even more circumstantial evidence for the urgent upgrade and improvements this crappy railway line desperately needs.

Just discovered...

National Rail have put this gem on their website:

"Overhead wire problems are causing disruption at London LiverpoolStreet. National Express East Anglia are advising passengers not to travel unless necessary. "

Good of NXEA to let us know. Oh wait, they haven't.

Currently...

Freezing on Braintree station because the 0812 is at least 65 minutes late.

Overhead line problems somewhere around Bethnal Green.

Oddly, the train hasn't been canceled yet despite it supposedly arriving AFTER the 0900.

The good news is the 0900 is "on time". At least that's according to NXEA. National Rail just say it's "delayed". Which generally means it hasn't even left Liverpool Street yet.

God protect us...

From the mindless cretins who board the train in one crowded carriage and then insist on walking through to the next crowded carriage, then the next one, then the next and so on ad nauseum.

It happened again tonight; just after I'd found somewhere quiet to stand a gormless female came barging through the connecting door from the carriage behind and forced me back towards the carriage doorway.

All the while the silly bitch was twittering away on her mobile telling some twat she was "just walking down the train."

And the daft cow would have kept going except we were in the leading coach of a 4 coach set. She couldn't go any further in any case.

Dim slapper.

Just found...

A kindred spirit.

I am not alone!

Reading about the hell that simply travelling to and from Southend  has become has caused me to re-evaluate my attitude to the users of the service.

It still rankles slightly that their service is far more frequent than the half-arsed one we have to endure to Braintree.

But since it's as crap as the one we get then they deserve sympathy,

It's when...

You're standing on the platform at Canary Wharf, hoping like hell that the next Jubilee Line train, the fourth since you got there, will have enough space for you to get on despite there being a 6 minute gap since the last overcrowded one went through.

That's the moment you appreciate just what a disingenuous load of  bollocks Boris bloody Johnson was spouting at the Tory Party conference this week.

Twat.

Bad news...

There were no Metro newspapers at Braintree Station this morning.

No Sudoku! How on earth am I going to survive the journey to Stratford?

Late...

And now relegated to the slow line...

Here we go again...

Already late and we aren't even  past Ilford yet.

We've Finally....

Arrived at Stratford,  a magnificent 17 minutes late!

Brilliantly...

Someone has just tried to let us know why the train is late.

It's just a shame the tannoy volume has been turned down so low no one could hear them properly.

Once again...

We're sitting at Chadwell Heath going nowhere.

Typically no information is forthcoming from the train crew to tell us why we've stopped.

Only 4 months to go.