Station frustration

My wife and I booked a steam train day out to Bath, advertised in the West Sussex County Times for Saturday, April 20.

We chose to catch the train at Pulborough Station.

We arrived in plenty of time and parked in the station car park. The charge was £6.80 for the day which we were happy with.

Having parked I looked

for a machine to pay for the parking – there isn’t one! The only option was to use a mobile phone.

I am a reasonably computer literate senior citizen but I do resent everything you do these days being channelled through apps on your phone. Every car park seems to use a different app.

I wrestled for over twenty minutes, trying to see my phone in bright sunlight, to make the payment without success.

Eventually a fellow traveller gave me a phone number for the parking company. I duly phoned up and was taken through an automated process and eventually managed to complete the transaction.

Why there can’t be a contactless card machine in the car park for payments I don’t know.

Unfortunately, the train was delayed by two hours, through no fault of the train company.

During the wait both my wife and I needed to use the toilets on the station. They were closed due to vandalism.

There was a sign on the door saying if you needed to use the toilets contact a member of staff. On Saturday there was no member of staff available.

We ended up driving back to Tesco in Pulborough to use their toilets.

Eventually the train arrived and the rest of the day was extremely enjoyable.

Everything these days is geared up to saving money to the detriment of the service provided.

It does not encourage people to use public transport.

‘Saving money to the detriment of the service provided’

Rick Kelsey, Farm Close, Loxwood