Topic ID 1191
On Sunday the missus and I planned to travel to a station north of Stevenage to see some friends. We were resigned to the fact that we'd have to get the rail replacement bus from Hertford North to Stevenage and then get a train on. On arrival at HN, we went up to the ticket desk. The bloke was busy reading his paper, so I made appropriate noises until he noticed we were there. He looked up from his paper, said "There are no trains today" and went back to reading his paper! Once I'd got his attention again, I explained calmly that we knew this but we were going to get the rail replacement bus and change. I eventually managed to buy two return tickets. Then we proceeded to wait in the cold at the bus stop whilst three buses went past to Ally Pally but none to Stevenage. We asked the guy in the fluorescent jacket and the clip board who was notionally in charge of the buses and, whilst he was friendly and polite, he said we wasn't being told anything. To be fair to him, we later heard him complaining on his mobile to a superior that there were people waiting in the cold. After an hour of waiting in the cold, Mrs. N had had enough (the next scheduled bus did turn up a few minutes later but our plans were quite time-critical - diminishing returns and all that) so I went back in to the station to get a refund on the tickets. There was no queue so I went up to the ticket desk . The bloke looked up from his paper and said "I told you there were no trains"!!! Mrs. N's mood worsened... Getting the refund is another story but needless to say there was a long queue behind me when I had finshed. (Sorry to the people in queue! When the situation is reversed I have been known to think bad thoughts about the person at the front!) Sorry about the rant just needed to get that off my chest!