National Rail Enquiries - Complaint - Disgusting Service

Today has been just a little bit exciting (not in a good way), it was time for Ratty to go home, having spent the last week enjoying not being on the idylic island of Alderney (which is about 2 miles across, has little in the way of mainland highstreet shops and a fairly static population (bar the seasonal tourist trade) same old faces, same old places, and your whole life confined to an area the size of central Redhill)...he took the opportunity to "Ooo and Ahhh" at the size of the mainland, stock up on £1 socks, shampoo and dodgy DVD players (all of which are either unavailable or extortionate to buy on the island) and say hello to some old pals...(we will probably pop over to see what the fuss is all about later in the year... ;)

Anyway, that was all good, this morning I had set the alarm for about twenty past eight so he could pack his bags (we had frittered away most of yesterday playing Gears of War Co-Op meaning that minor detail had been forgotten in all the gunfire and flying limbs)...I cooked a spot of breakfast (griddled bacon sarnies on brown bread with plenty of ketchup), Ratty finished his packing and we all piled into Colin to run him into Redhill to catch his train (should have been simple enough)...

I'm starting to think that whenever we get into Colin we are going to have some sort of adventure, because when we got to the roundabout in central Redhill it quickly became apparent (lots of people in HVJs guarding traffic barriers and a number of double decker buses in the station car park) that we were going to have a problem...

Ratty had called National Rail Enquiries on Saturday (during a break from the alien hoard attacking) and been told that all was well, there would be no engineering works and no disruption to the timetable, but had, thankfully opted to set off well in advance of his flight (just in case)...

I ran down to see what the fuss was about (as Ratty's bag was frankly probably about as heavy as me) to speak to the guys blocking the entrance to the station car park and they said - "Nuffink' really runnin' mate, betta take a look at ver bord, but if vere's anyfink it's most likely a bus replacement"...uh oh...we struggled with Ratty's enormous bag down to the main station entrance, on the off chance, but no, everything cancelled...spotted plenty of pissed off, worried looking people who seemed to be quite at a loss, but no trains, and all the buses outside seemed to have no drivers or passengers...so back up to Colin we struggled, and, panting, back home we drove, on the way I rang up National Rail Enquires again, this time getting an Asian sounding gentleman who told me that if we could manage to get to Reading then everything would be fine, the trains to Southampton would be running perfectly, pulling up, diving out, as the plan now seemed to be to try and drive Ratty all the way to Reading to get a connecting service, Flyingpops snapped, and decided that this *really* wasn't good enough, as we had been lied to once already...she decided to give them a call herself...

The. Poor. Guy.

Sorry, whoever you were, but the frustrations of the last (whatever it may have been) all exploded into this guys headset...I couldn't even listen to most of it...hiding outside the front door, relaying whatever bits of English were painless enough to call across to Ratty in the car...

Turns out, all trains from Reading couldn't be guaranteed as running, there just wasn't any news that they weren't running...just awful!...verging on the totally dishonest....it's like playing a tricky mind game with a politician trying to get a straight answer out of that call centre...but, with persistence (once totally battered into submission) he, like a bottled genie threatened with a second eternity at the bottom of a mockingly wealth-filled chasm, finally revealed the only likely route that would work - Gatwick to Clapham, Clapham to Southampton...three calls, three different answers...33% chance (increasing if you threaten death and violence) of a correct answer then...

Ratty called about an hour ago, and all is well, he will make his flight...but National Rail Enquiries? There are no two ways about it - You suck.