The wifi on the train isn’t up to watching YouTube, so if a few words of this post drop out … I’m doing a Norman Collier impression in a tunnel.

I’m on my way back from London, feeling a little tired and stumped as to what to write about, these “on the train posts are becoming a habit”, the subject has just leapt out at me. Or to put it another way, the conductor has just told me my ticket isn’t valid for travel.

Apparently, my ticket is a Grand Central ticket, which this train isn’t. I asked how I was supposed to know and the conductor told me I can tell them because they’re black. Now I don’t think the departure boards tell me if a train is a Grand Central train so I’ll have to wait until it comes into King Cross, do the mad RUNAROUND! scramble as they announce which platform my train will be on then go and check it’s colour before getting on (or not).

So, the site doesn’t tell you what, when or how a Grand Central train is. I asked the conductor and he helpfully re-iterated that “it’s the black ones”. I bloody hate the way the rail service is now split up into a hundred headless chickens all crashing into each other. On almost every train the guard announces “Please check your ticket to see if it is valid for travel on this train” … and a dozen people in the carriage all start checking their tickets in fear, worried their train isn’t the right colour.

There is of course, no information on your ticket that would help you know you are on the right/wrong/black/blue train. Actually, there is, I’ve just spotted it and it says “Route: Grand Central Only”, which if I’m being pedantic, I’m on. It should say “Grand Central Trains Only” in BIG BLACK LETTERS.

Now added to this general “have I got the right ticket” mayhem is the “excuse me, you are sitting in my seat” reservation mayhem. The last month I’ve traveled to London quite a few times, each time booking a seat that never materialised. If you book online and use the Fasticket machine don’t expect to sit down. Just for laughs, one week, they decided to “re-letter” the carriages, making “C” into “B” and “K” into “F”, moving the resevations around. What hilarity that caused.

Whilst I’m in angry mode, Grand Central trains, as well as being black, have pictures of Marilyn Monroe in them, with a sign to Grand Central station in the background. This half-arsed branding effort really pisses me off, as if waking up drunk in Sunderland was in anyway related to the blonde bombshell.

AND ON TOP OF THAT, the tables have monopoly and chess boards printed on them, as if I carry a few grand in monopoly money, a silver dog, hat and dice, just in case. If anyone can explain the connection between Grand Central, the York train and Monopoly, please put me out of my branding misery.

A guy next to me complained at a girl who used her phone in the quiet coach, which I always think is a bit gittish, especially since he’d just done the same thing himself whilst playing the “poaching someone’s reserved seat” game, where you sit down and hope they don’t turn up or that they’ve re-numbered the coach whilst you weren’t looking.

Google on the train wifi defaults to Google Sweden. I may be on the wrong train after all.

After all that modern-life fueled bile, here’s two good bits of news. First, the conductor should have charged me £99 for a proper ticket, but he chose not to. What a nice bloke.

Secondly, at the moment the National Express Eastern Line train booking site if a “bit broke”, meaning that it sells you half price “SENIOR” tickets. I wondered why I’d managed to get a York to London return for £32 (half price!). So, go buy your tickets now and get first class for less than standard (as long as the train is black). You maybe have to look as old as I do to get away with it though.

So, come on National Express, pull your finger out, we all know that GNER sucks, you need to try a little harder (except for the conductor on this train who needs a pay rise right now), improve your communications and get rid of the monopoly board. Either that or install hot air grills in the floor of the vestibules and sell cheesy wotsits in the shape of little houses.