Standard Class War

Earlier this year I blogged about posh people on the train getting away without paying their fares. They were too busy googling price comparison websites for passenger jets. Yes, really.

Since then, it's happened once more. And today it happened again. Travelling on the same train journey with the same train company, it's clear that Grand Central is getting a reputation as the posh person's bendy bus.  All they think they have to do is turn up, take a seat, and ignore the ticket collector when he comes round. 

Well not today. 

There were six of them and all were rumbled and thrown off at York.

And when I say 'rumbled' I do of course mean reported to the ticket collector.  Come on, Grand Central, get your act together.

Comments

Capybara said…
I’m a regular Grand Central user and the two great things they have going for them are firstly that they are cheaper than the national franchises and secondly you can pay on the train. For the latter to be possible clearly they have to let passengers board without a ticket so that does require vigilant staff. I have usually found them so and going North they usually get through the whole train in about 15 minutes. What I don’t understand is why, when these people were rumbled, they didn’t just pay the fare for their journey. Did they refuse to pay and get thrown off? If they were thrown off at York that would imply they were trying to reach London, in which case a better fate probably befell them if they tried the same trick. Assuming they did not want to wait until the next GC then they would have had to use East Coast. I recently found out that the inspectors there get paid commission on fares collected on the train which means they have a financial incentive for applying the rules. And the rules are that if you want to buy a ticket on the train you pay full whack; you can’t get a cheap fare. Which means they would probably have had to shell out something well into three figures each to reach their destination. Either that or face prosecution, something else East Coast are hot on.
6:44 PM
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