The Ticket Collector

Tony Blair caught without a ticket, and then allowed to travel for free!

Former prime minister Tony Blair was left red-faced when he was caught travelling on a Heathrow Express train on Wednesday without a ticket and said he had no cash to pay the fare.

Blair, who has earned around 500,000 pounds being a speaker at various events since leaving office in June, was confronted by a ticket inspector as he travelled to Heathrow Airport to catch a flight to the United States on Monday.

He claimed he had no cash for the £24.50 pounds fare because money an aide had given him was no longer in his pocket.
Blairs bodyguard offered to pay the ticket, but the inspector said he could travel for free.

Blair’s spokesman was unavailable for comment.

So just what is “on time” when it comes to the Railway?

The term ‘on time’ normally means that a train arrives at the correct time publicised in a timetable - correct?
No, not on the railway its not.

When it comes to punctually - the figures which the Railway Companies print huge A1 posters and show off and say “hey look at us we have 98% punctually, blah blah” and which also determines your season ticket discount . You’d expect that when they say they have 98% that 98% of trains arrived at the destination at the timetabled time.
Wrong! The trains only have to arrive within 5 minutes of the timetabled time.

So the train arrives 5 minutes late and it is still on time! Even better is that long distance ‘intercity’ services have an extra 5 minutes allowance. So now the train can be up to 10 minutes and be still on time!

Now what the Railway Companies are getting wise to is that they can add extra minutes into the timetable here and there as ‘recovery time’. So if they are regularly failing the 10 minutes time the can always add extra minutes into the working timetable to compensate. Now what the Train Company would say is this ‘recovery time’ is to compensate for engineering works and speed restrictions.

When it comes to compensation for the trains running late, you have to be delayed by 30 minutes before you even get to start to get compensation. But what with the extra minutes being added here and there just how late is it in real terms?

Ticket names to change.

As if you were not already confused by the huge number of different ticket names, the powers that be have decided to change the names yet again.

So say goodbye to the SuperSaver, the Saver, the Cheap Day Return, the Standard Day Return and say hello to Super Off-Peak and Anytime.

The new ticket types are as follows.

Free Family Railcard.

Basicly the same offer as last year.

The Daily Mail in conjunction with ATOC are giving away free Family Railcards valid until 30th June to anyone that fills in their details on line at http://www.family-railcard.co.uk/dailymail.

Your Family Railcard should be with you towards the beginning of April, and will also include a voucher for a half price 12 month Family Railcard.

But be quick as this offer is only available online until midnight 23rd March 2008

Buy now for half price - Young Persons Railcard

If you are 16-25 years old you can purchase a Young Persons Railcard for half the normal price.

A Young Persons Railcard gives you 1/3 off rail travel for a whole year.

Until 16 March 2008, you can get one online for just £12 instead of the usual £24.

You must get it online at http://www.youngpersons-railcard.co.uk and enter the promotional code SAVING12 .

Police seeking Tube photographer attacker

Have you seen this person?

He is wanted by police for assaulting an amateur photographer. This picture of his attacker was taken by the amateur photographer.

PC Ben Dawson said the incident occurred on the escalators leading to the main concourse at Waterloo mainline station at around 10.17pm on Wednesday 12 December.

“It would appear the victim, an amateur photographer, who enjoys taking snaps of London street scenes, was taking shots on the escalators when a member of the public took exception to having his photo taken and asked him to delete the photo.

“The photographer told him he could not delete the shot as it was not a digital camera. The man then attempted to grab the camera and punched the victim in the face. The victim suffered cuts and bruising to his face as a result of the incident.

“We have released this photo today, which was taken by the victim prior to the incident and we are appealing to members of the public to assist us in identifying the man pictured.

“The man is described as white, 34-38 years-old and about 5 ft 9 in tall. He was wearing a dark jacket and carrying a dark rucksack.

“Anyone who may be able to assist us with our inquiries is urged to call the BTP on 0800 40 50 40 or the Witness Appeal Line on 020 7391 5275 quoting background reference B5 of 15/02/08.”

Virgin ‘Free’ First Class Ticket

If you travelled or attempted to travel on Virmin Trains either into or out of London Euston between 31 December 2007 and 3 January 2008 inclusive, then you are entitled to one complimentary, First Class return journey to use anywhere on their network. But good luck trying to claim it.

Virmin are attempting to try and regain some good PR from this stunt, but as always with Virmin they have to stick a huge list of restrictions and terms. You have to be flexible in which free first class return journey you choose (i.e. travelling out at 5am and arriving back at midnight), you have to stick to that train and there are only 100,000 tickets available.

Please remember that Virmin are hoping that you will forget that you can still claim compensation for the original ticket and only list it once on their site that you can. “Claiming a ‘This one’s on us’ Virgin Trains ticket does not affect your statutory rights and a full refund of your original ticket dated for travel between 31 December 2007 and 3 January 2008 will still be available.”

More information and the small print can be found at http://www.thisonesonus.com/