My Aching Feet!

My feet are sore! Why are my feet sore? Well I've just spent the entire train journey from Dundee to Glasgow standing due to several factors. The main one is obvious - there were no seats available but there are several reasons as to why there were no seats available and the blame for it falls squarely at the door of ScotRail. Anyway, here's the list…

1. ScotRail cancelled the previous train - no reason was given.
2. Rush were kicking off their UK and European tour with a concert at the SECC.
3. Celtic were playing A.C. Milan at Parkhead.

So, aside from the tedium of having to spend an hour more than I wanted to in Dundee, I had to stand all the way home in a train absolutely full to bursting and all simply because ScotRail don't have any consideration for their customers. Having cancelled the early afternoon train, you might think it would dawn on whatever imbecile responsible for provisioning the next train that it couldn't possibly carry the expected volume of passengers heading into Glasgow with two such large events taking place later that evening.

It obviously suited their pockets better to cram us all in like cattle, or at least those of us that could get on, and with no regard to health and safety far less our comfort. People trying to board the train at Stirling had a very difficult time of it and I'm sure there were quite a few that didn't manage it, especially a couple of dejected looking souls with bicycles.

So I had to stand in the aisle and listen to groups of forty and fifty-something blokes waffling on about how many times they'd seen Rush or how they hope they play "Closer To The Heart"...again, while constantly checking their Blackberrys and passing round the bottles of Corona and Peroni. On top of that there were the Celtic fans who were pretty well behaved, even though the bottles and cans of beer were being downed with gusto there too. And all that beer meant a constant stream of people trying to squeeze down the aisle to the toilet and back again.

There's an interesting article on overcrowding here and it's obvious from that that overcrowding on trains is seen as just one of those things we have to put up with. Until there's an accident or the train has to be evacuated and then the HSE can step in but isn't that too late?