Back on the trains today, and currently heading north on a National Express train out of London, enjoying the free WiFi…

I arrived at King’s Cross to catch a train back up to the north of England and was horrified to find that the train was so full that the guard was actually recommending that people take a later train. I decided to take a later train… When I asked at the station help desk if they could ‘reward’ my action which helped reduce unsafe crowding on a train, I was basically told to ‘get lost’….

I caught the later train, and I have actually got a seat… wow! The only problem is the carriage is so old that there are no power points for laptops etc….

So, be warned. On National Express trains you may get free WiFi, but you won’t be thanked for helping the company with over-crowding, and you may end up in a carriage that is so old that there is nowhere to plug a laptop in.

Not really a MMISoftware subject but I couldn’t help but notice today that I was no longer traveling on GNER trains, but National Express. In fact, if you go to the GNER website, or are automatically redirected to the National Express. So what has changed…?

In a word… nothing!

The trains are still expensive and overcrowded. However, since taking over on the 9th December 2007 National Express does seem to have made at least 4 changes:

1. All references to GNER have been either removed, or covered over with a sticker (the staff are still wearing GNER uniforms but with National Express cap badges).
2. The trains now sport a white-stripe with National Express written on it, as opposed to a red stripe with GNER written on it.
3. There is a new (and supposedly better) compensation system for ticket refunds due to last running trains.
4. And the BIGGIE (and the reason for posting here), all WiFi on board the trains is now free (in the past you had to pay to connect if you were in standard class).

To be fair to National Express they have only been running the service for a few weeks and it will take time to fix all the problems. However, I was alarmed to read in their ‘on-board glossy’ magazine that it was going to take until 2010 before a decent service could be offered…