The start

I've been commuting daily between Bletchley and Euston for something like twenty years. In this time I've seen four organisations running the service (British Rail, North London Lines, Silverlink and now London Midland) and seen some significant changes.

There's no doubt that the trains are cleaner (20 years ago we still had smoking carriages) and safer (there's no opening the door and jumping out before the train has stopped). It now takes longer to travel though (Bletchley now having no fast trains during the morning and evening rush hour) and I've a feeling that it won't be long before I'm paying more for my season ticket than I'm forking out on my mortgage.

I've done more than my fair of moaning and groaning about the delays, cancellations, over-crowding and cost of travelling. Usually this has been in conversation with other suffering passengers and occasionally (I'd like to think politely) with the railway staff. Sometimes, when things have been particularly bad, I've rung or emailed the customer service people. None of this has ever really achieved anything, but letting off a bit of steam probably has made me feel better ;-)

So, taking things a few steps further I thought I'd have a go at creating a blog site to air some thoughts. Whether anyone else ever reads any of this I have no idea and quite frankly don't care 'cos I'm going to give it a go anyway...