I see your namby pamby suggestions and raise you the Silverlink North London Line. A wonderful line where graffiti-smeared trains carry assorted beggars, junkies and muggers between unmanned stations with no ticket barriers. All the crime and fear you could possibly want.
And? She was a right little cow.
But it all seems to be being sorted now, which is good.
Now, for shitty service, Arriva North Western - the trains are really old slam door things, no heating, dirty like you wouldn’t believe, and the stations are horrendous.
There’s always good old Thames “Turbo Express”. The inverted commas are necessary, given that their trains travel at the speed of continental drift, and stop at every station, stray cat, and empty crisp packet between Oxford and Paddington.
Then it shouldn’t be spelled ‘chit’ 
My one experience on a Virgin train involved an unscheduled 45 minute stop in the middle of BFE, English Countryside. A man sitting nearby told me we were lucky it wasn’t longer.
Based on my one data point, I would have to agree with the OP. Virgin trains are The Suck.
They do. But for the tunnel, it’s always seemingly the first time. Or if a little more ‘mature’, the best time.
Fwiw, I’ve got a tram network close by. Won’t get you very far but it does get you there very well.
Shade a “chit” also means “a rude girl/woman.”
:smack: Memo to self: don’t rely on Terry Pratchett exclusively for all knowledge.
Quite. He’s good, but he doesn’t quite know everything 
I’m just recalling travelling from London to Canterbury on the train. I got on a “fast” train, it only stopped at every other station. :rolleyes:
I think that’s about right. I always plan on a forty-five minute delay whenever I’m travelling by Virgin. I’m rarely disappointed.
(Though there was that one time which involved making a connection at Birmingham New Street … which didn’t happen, due to somewhat more than a forty-five minute delay. The whole “missed connection” thing sort of snowballed, to the point where the journey ended up taking long enough for me to read the uncut edition of The Stand. This is literally true.)
I know exactly how you feel. However, I tend to travel up to Edinburgh quite a bit at the weekends, and so normally catch the 6:30 pm train from Birmingham New Street, scheduled to arrive into Edinburgh at about a quarter to midnight. Now, consistently, for the past year almost, the train has arrived into Edinburgh just after 11pm.
I think your delay Steve is the reaction to my consistently early journey times. (Newton’s third law! ;))
Hmm. We may have some confirmatory evidence, in that, when the train journey involved both of us (you getting me to New Street Station after BrumDope) your forty-five minute earliness cancelled out my forty-five minute delays, meaning that the train arrived exactly on time. Weird. Eerie.
Wow… I think we may be onto something. Steve you are the train lateness fairy. I am the train earliness fairy. Now, do we use our powers for good or evil? 
Since the total effect of our powers is to make the trains run on time, it would appear that, together, we are Benito Mussolini. I find this idea somewhat disturbing.
You think you find the idea disturbing? I’m exceedingly disturbed, I mean, hey, at lest you’re a man.
Why is it all my pittings, whilst they start out angry, never quite achieve true vitriol?
Not to worry, Steve and Angua.
breathes a sigh of relief
Now to see if I can get a full refund from Virgin. Or I could try and transmute base metals into gold. I know which one’s easier.
I’ve just had this email from them…
Woooo!!! Complaining works. Complaining to everyone possible, threatening to take things to the rail regulator, being generally very very polite works. Woo!!
Well, they’re the single best argument ever against the division of national industries into non-competing oligopolies, with the regulator headed by ex-members of the companies’ executives. They epitomise the problems caused when a privatisation is royally fucked up, not the intrinsic problems of privatisation.