We're finally into the home straight

There are now less than 7 days of the shambolic f*cked NXEA franchise left to run.

Next Sunday cannot come nearly fast enough as far as I'm concerned.

I can truly say I will not miss one single aspect of the bone-headed incompetence and stupidity that were the hallmarks of this bunch of clowns.

Truly, NXEAs time running the Greater Anglia franchise is a testament to the lunacy of selling off what used to be British Rail to rubbish operators like National Express.

Never has the lie that fare increases are only to pay for "infrastructure improvements and new trains" been more exposed than by this crowd of f*ckwits.

We've seen no obvious "improvements". The infrastructure is more shit than ever; we still have to endure endless signal, points and overhead cable problems. The "new" trains are still the same filthy, clapped out, unreliable and uncomfortable class 321s that NXEA started with. The only new trains NXEA brought into service were on the Stansted Express route. Any additional trains which were introduced were just recycled from other franchises and just as dirty and clapped-out as every other train NXEA were running.

At the end of 2010, we were told NXEA would be adding umpteen thousands of "additional peak time seats".

How did that turn out then?  Well I started this blog for one thing and as for NXEA, well they decided to remove all of the peak-time direct Stratford to Braintree trains from the timetable. Now, if you wanted to get from Stratford to Braintree during the rush, you were going to have to change at either Chelmsford or Witham. Having you need to travel in 2 trains doubled the chances of a cancellation screwing your journey and that's precisely what happened on several occasions before Platform 10A at Stratford was repaired and brought back into use. Direct services were finally re-instated in the new May 2011 timetable.

Even then, the platform infrastructure wasn't complete, it still isn't today! It took them until August for them to connect the tannoy speakers on Platform 10A. Even then they'd put in a load of advertising screens first.

I could go on, I've been recording this lunacy for the last 14 months or so and by rights the things we've had to put up with should have caused riots. But as ever we just sat there and took all the shit these useless toerags threw at us.

At the moment, I'm optimistic that the new operator will be just what we need, at least they have experience, they are the Dutch National Railway after all. And they are one of the best operators in the world plus they already hae a well-run franchise in Northern Rail. Though quite what they'll make of the antiquated infrastructure they're inheriting from NXEA Heaven only knows.

At least they're committing to clean the stations and trains properly and to providing a proper flow of information to the people who pay for the tickets. They couldn't do any worse.