Central trains rock... sort of...

Mordib · Post by **Mordib** » 05 Apr 2005, 15:47

well since I moved I am taking the local train into birmingham city centre for work each day. as such I get a 4 week pass each month. i went and renewed it yesterday and to my initial suspicion it had actually got cheaper. I inquired as to why and apparently central trains run a system whereby they have targets in terms of trains being ontime, if they miss those targets then they give either a 5% or 10% discount depending on how badly they missed it. now that might seem bad in terms of their performance but given theres supposed to be a train every 10 minutes the longest delay ive encountered so far has only been 20minutes, which compared to delays on many longer journeys with the likes of Virgin that isnt bad at all!

most impressed

m.

wazzabi · Post by **wazzabi** » 07 Apr 2005, 13:04

Their services to the farther reaches of the Midlands used to be just plain bad. I travelled regularly on Central Trains a few years back and they were more often than not bloody late, but they may have improved by now, I don't know. I just have bad memories of a few years back where I would left freezing on a platform waiting and waiting from my train to turn up. I have to say I'd rather pay normal price for a decent train service than 10% off for a crap one. Still, nice of them to give some money off for them being crap!

EDIT: And I can't believe I just got involved in a discussion about bloody trains!