Yes its National Train Day today, but not here. This is an American day to celebrate the benefits of the train. An annual event, this year it coincides with the 40th anniversary of Amtrak, the provider of long distance train travel in the US. In 2010 185 different events took place in the US to celebrate the day. And what do we do?

Some days ago I wrote that I couldn’t remember the last time we had such a good weather forecast for an Easter holiday. It has turned out that this has been the warmest Easter since 1949. So many of us have been out and about making the most of it. Car mostly but for longer journeys the train has been answer. The number of people heading out of Paddington on Thursday night to the west country or out of Kings Cross or Euston to the north gave witness to that but was this the best way to go?

Early January means one thing to many travellers. The time of increased rail fares. This year the average increase is 5.8% which is well above the rate of inflation. But that disguises a range of price rises varying from the high to the outrageous for this year train companies can decide which fares go up or not. The government rule is that prices go up by the retail price index plus 1% apart from two lines, Southeastern and West Yorkshire where it is RPI plus 3%.
Passenger Focus, the consumer watchdog covering the railways has pointed out that a Norwich to London anytime return goes up by 14% and Canterbury to London goes by nearly 13%. But Travelmole, the online travel trade e-letter has found that a London monthly fare from Hornsey to Stevenage has gone up by 46.2% from £194.40 to £284.20 which may only be about £90 but is it over £1,000 extra a year to find.

CD-Traveller (25 Sept. 2010) referred to a list of quangos that the government was planning to close, merge or retain. Yesterday the “official” list was published. Going through the list of hundreds affecting the holidaymaker and the traveller, we are not sure that we’ll notice much difference.

What is the role of the passenger in any industrial dispute?
To listen to argument after argument knowing that they can have little influence? To tolerate politicians with fairly well known attitudes who spoke them before the dispute and who will speak the same afterwards? To know that each side will say they regret the disruption that it will cause passengers but that there was no other way? To realise that they will be the ones inconvenienced but who can have no say or sway in the decision of either side?
Is short, then the passenger has to grin and bear it.
In any dispute there are 3 partners, the company, the employees and the customers. The company and the employees will discuss and negotiate. The only time the customers become involved is when decisions have been made.

It is unusual that customer satisfaction gets mentioned by a government. It merits interest especially if it looks as though there is genuine interest rather than lip service in what passengers think.
Lord Bradshaw who worked for various parts of British Rail in his career asked whether additional measures of customer satisfaction would be added to the requirements when companies bid for new rail franchises.
Since 1999 passengers have been asked twice a year on behalf of the rail consumer watchdog, Passenger Focus, a series of questions including being asked to rate satisfaction with a number of elements of the service provided.

From the website

“We are the independent passenger watchdog. Our mission is to get the best deal for passengers.

We are an independent public body set up by the Government to protect the interests of passengers.”

I write this as I travel on the National Express early morning service to Leeds. It’s not very busy in my coach despite the fact that all but 8 seats have little cards indicating they are reserved for parts or all of the journey.National Express have announced that, as from this weekend, they are going [...]

The results of the autumn 2008 survey by Passenger Focus are out this morning. To remind you, Passenger Focus is the body that monitors the rights of train passengers and each half year it interviews 25,000 passengers with paper based surveys at railway stations and on trains across the country.Overall satisfaction is up across the [...]

For a lot of people today is the first day back at work and here in the south east, the snow may not help despite the fact that we have no more than a couple of centimetres of the stuff.What will annoy people is the annual party every year when rail prices increase. I thought [...]