The Eurostar experience,
Dear Eurostar, I am writing to you not to complain, but to
explain to you why you have not only lost a customer, but created one who will
actively discourage others from trying to travel on Eurostar.
The
following is my full Eurostar experience. I had previously travelled to paris
on Eurostar in 1999 and vowed that, if possible, I would never do so again, the
experience was so unpleasant. Foolishly, I was persuaded that competition
between yourself and the ferry and airlines had improved your service so I
decided to try again.
I decided to visit Paris from
Monday 25th March to Thursday 28th March. To maximise my
time in Paris I selected the 10.35 outward journey and the 5.58 return.
I
began my journey at 5am to catch an early train with plenty of spare changeover
time to ensure I could check in at Eurostar with more than the 30 minutes check
in recommended. Of course the trains from the north were delayed because of the
cold, so I ended up sprinting between Kings cross and St Pancreas to make sure
I could check in on time. I made it on time, but found large queues created by
the security check. 20 minutes to get from the gate to the scanner, still
plenty of time, no need to panic. Then disaster! We need to check your bag!
Only one member of staff to check bags identified on two scanners! So I waited,
10 minutes whilst the bag stopped three before me was checked, then 5 minutes,
then another 7 minutes. The security lady was painfully slow. I have only ever
seen such slow and deliberate movements in drug abusers who have taken large
doses of opiates or benzodiazepenes. As the security lady in question was not even
close to the heroin chic look, the only other explanation was that she gorged
on hash brownies 24/7 or was what would be called (in the days when we were
allowed to use accurate descriptive language) retarded, but in these
politically correct times I believe the word is special. Well she was VERY special,
as she spoke to herself before each slow deliberate movement, her lips moved.
The seemingly herculean intellectual task of searching baggage was at the very
limits of her capabilities. She was the only baggage inspector serving two
scanners, the staff helping the bags through on each scanner did not seem
inclined to assist. Very politely and calmly I said, “excuse me, I will miss my
train”, BIG mistake, speaking to her completely derailed her train of thought
and she visibly struggled to resume her slow deliberate motions. So 15 minutes
after my train had left, I got my bag back, with no explanation of why it had
to be searched! The bag and almost exactly the same contents had passed through
airport security unchallenged over 10 times. Your staff kindly arranged a new
train for myself and my travelling companion, “sorry” they said, 12.30 is full,
we can put you on the 1.30 but only on tip seats. We had no option but to
accept a three hour wait in a departure area. The consequences of arriving in
Paris three hours late were that we had to take the underground during rush
hour, so we lost another hour of our precious time in Paris (the whole
afternoon). But I get ahead of myself, your staff were careful in what they
said, but it was apparent that this cause of missing trains was quite a
frequent occurrence. All they could say was it was beyond their control. It is
not acceptable to advertise a 30 minute check in time when you know an hour is
needed. I realise you have to compete with airlines, and advertising an hours
check in would make your product seem even less attractive.
I
am not sure I have the facility with the English language to fully describe the
horror of the actual journey. To start, boarding the train brought back all the
memories of the horribly cramped, overcrowded, over heated and poorly
ventilated cattle class that had made me vow never to travel Eurostar ever
again in 1999. To improve matters the tip seats were situated adjacent to hot
air blowers that melted the chocolate in my coat pocket inside 2 minutes. Once
the passengers had settled, the train manager kindly found us separate seats in
the coach, it would have been nice to be able to sit next to my companion.
After 5 minutes in the stuffy fetid carriage having taken off all the clothes
it was possibly beyond decent to remove, I desperately needed refreshment, so
made my way to the buffet car. Five people in the queue and it took 10 minutes
to serve each person. The serving lady was not another special, the problem
seemed to be the speed at which the handheld computer worked, each item was
painstakingly entered at a temporal pattern more commonly associated with a
narcoleptic snail. Three staff who were presumably dedicated to serving the
business class into which you wish to force people to travel, stood by and
watched the growing queue with amusement as they had a good gossip. The horror
was not yet over, I returned to the tropical paradise that was the coach and
endured it for an hour before deciding I would use the toilet. It would have
helped if I was an heterofecephiliac. To
be fair, I have experienced a worse toilet. An earth closet in India in 35
degree heat, where the previous users had suffered from amoebic dysentery. I
can only presume a previous user having been trapped on the train for an hour, felt
they had a life sentence and decided to stage a dirty protest. The joy of the tropical paradise was not
quite yet over, an elderly lady who presumably had eaten 10 onion bhajis,
cabbage and pickled eggs for her previous meal, decided to demonstrate that she
no longer had complete mastery of her rectal sphincter. It was here that the
superheated ventilation system came into its own. Apparently, you recycle the
air in the coaches as you superheat it through the “ventilation” system. As the
rich aroma got somewhat richer, passengers fled to the ends of the coach, not
in an attempt to be ready for a quick exit, but in the hopeless search for
fresher air. The crush of bodies was so great, I was reminded of descriptions
of the piles of corpses in gas chambers, grotesquely contorted and entangled in
their last desperate struggle for clean air. Unfortunately I could not take
pictures as your trains were designed and built in the century before people
had a need to recharge mobile devices. I would suggest that you should try to
heat the coaches slightly more. You would then achieve a unique first, of gas
chamber and crematorium combined. Even the Germans would be impressed at the
efficiency with which you could transport and process victims. If Eurostar
coaches had existed in the 1940’s they would not have had to use inefficient
cattle trucks and invest in expensive shower facilities. Then we arrived in
Paris and we all tumbled out onto the platform gulping in the clean cool air
and simply grateful to escape the hell of travelling cattle class.
On the return journey, I
discovered you had not finished in your attempts to enrich my travelling
experience.
French security was efficient and
fast, no queues. Then the nightmare began! Eurostar have been so keen to rent
space in the waiting area, to shops, there was no room for the passengers
waiting for the trains. Even a dyspraxic thinker would realise a long narrow
waiting area with a boarding gate a third of the way down would be impractical
for large numbers of passengers. Fighting through the crush of bodies and
luggage to get to gate B was almost impossible. If you were to employ the
Sheffield police to control the crowds, I am sure you could reenact the
Hillsborough disaster with little difficulty on a daily basis. After going
through the furthest gate, we began to wonder why we had paid for train travel.
We had to walk halfway to London to get to our carriage. I paid for a rail
journey, not a hike from Paris to London. The train left on time, there were
even two people serving in the buffet car! Only 5 minutes to serve each
passenger! Whilst it was enjoyable to hear the mellifluous tones of a French
announcer seducing the intercom system, it would be a great help to English
speaking passengers if we could make out more than the word “twonell” in the
English version of the announcements. Just before the tunnel, (sorry, that
should be “twonell”), the train stopped for 10 minutes, followed by an announcement
that there would be a 25 minute delay. We finally arrived into St Pancreas at
8.30pm instead of 7.40pm. The result, I had missed the last possible train back
to Middlesbrough, cost to me, overnight accommodation in London at weekday
prices, and a brand new ticket home the next day. You may not be aware, but in
these days when a “”saver” return” costs the same as a days luxury sports car
hire, and means you will stand the entire journey, passengers are forced to
book single journeys on trains and subsequently bear very heavy costs if they
miss a connection. The knock on effects of your late running train were
enormous for many passengers.
So to summarise, your
unreasonably long check in times cost me an afternoon in Paris. Your delays
cost me a fortune in accommodation and purchasing new rail tickets. Your
attempts to make cattle class so uncomfortable it persuades customers to
purchase business class tickets has left me with the kinds of memories that
could induce PTSD. My only reasonable response is to publish this to the internet
to provide amusement and warn other potential travellers what a rich experience
potentially awaits them travelling by Eurostar. It is probably not necessary
for me to add that travelling Eurostar rates on my pleasure scale at about the
same level as anal sex with an epileptic kangaroo. It sounds exotic and
interesting, but is not a service a sane well balanced person would wish to
receive. If Dante had been writing the Divine Comedy in the 21st
century I am sure he would have a Eurostar train as the eighth circle of hell.
