Inflexible operators

I am in favour of franchising, and believe many of the problems are caused by a greedy Government, and interference and incompetence by the Department for Transport.

More problems are caused by Network Rail and its failings. I explain this to many people, and that the latter is a nationalised company responsible to Government, not a private company as they think.

Certainly, if franchising had not happened, we would not have all the new trains we have today. However, I encountered a problem recently at Chester that firmly lies at the door of the train operating companies.

I had led a party around Cheshire, and a man in his eighties had lost his return ticket to London. (Issued by Virgin Trains. The station is operated by Arriva Trains Wales.)

Despite there being two Virgin trains an hour, there are no Virgin staff present at this major station.

I rang the Virgin Trains enquiry

number, but despite providing all the numbers on the outward ticket and on the payment receipt, they could not trace the ticket. A Supervisor was contacted, who basically said: no ticket, no travel.

Since a First Class ticket to London is £135, he bought a Second Class ticket for about £60 using a Railcard. I told him to explain the situation to the Train Manager on the train and ask if he could sit with his friend in First Class. Full marks to the Train Manager for saying yes.

As the lost ticket was for a specific train, the solution should have been (and I emphasise that this man was in his eighties) to allow him to travel on the train, and the Train Manager told to check no one else was using the lost ticket.

Hopefully the new franchise operator for Wales, and hopefully a new franchise operator for West Coast, will be more customer friendly than Arriva and Virgin Trains.

Chris Lewis, Widnes