'Call that sabotage?' said the Fat Controller of milking profits from the beleaguered British train user. 'If French trains can be back up and running over the busiest weekend of the year, that's nothing. To do the job properly, you have to do it from the inside. Preferably from the top while making millions for yourself and shareholder pals.
'The sustained reckless ideology of keeping a natural monopoly privatised while fabricating a faux model of competitive market forces. That's what the saboteurs in France should have done. The key to it is 30 years of spending the bare minimum on the railways, balanced beautifully with charging passengers as much as you can get away with. Then you pretend to do engineering works every other Sunday, while carefully ensuring nothing is upgraded. If you reach an endpoint where a replacement bus service is normalised, then you've properly run services into the ground and hit the jackpot.
'The only investment we ever made in UK train travel was paying my mate's private consultancy to come up with ridiculous excuses for why there were so many delays and cancellations. Even the fines for those delays are picked up by the British taxpayer, so in a way it's still publicly funded without actually being owned by the public. Ironically, an organisation backed by the French government profits from our rail network as well.
'Now f**k off while I talk to my luxury yacht dealer.'
Meanwhile, in France, where most trains completed high speed journeys on time at a fair price, the Far-Right blamed the Far-Left for the sabotage. French mimes blamed Russia. Israel blamed Iran, cats blamed dogs, Piers Morgan blamed Meghan Markle, and everyone else blamed Angela Rayner.
image from pixabay
- deskpilot
- Nov 27, 2023
TV viewers are mystified by rail company adverts suggesting that train journeys are quick, easy, affordable, and take you to places that you might want to go to. Many rail operators seem keen to blow their hard-earned subsidies on TV ads – but why?
Marketing experts are also puzzled. In their view advertising cannot cover up for a bad service. Customers know that, in reality, the rail service is very variable, because of strikes, bad weather, cancellations, underinvestment, overcrowding, illness, weird pricing, government interference and engineering problems. They are also aware that travelling on busy trains is like attending a catch-covid festival.
A number of theories to explain the TV ads have been put forward. The first theory is that the rail companies are trying to find new customers who haven’t used the train before. Interesting theory. Those people are in for a shock.
The second theory is that people are stupid. If you tell them to go by train, they go by train. Even in the sophisticated twenty first century, with its TikToks and space shots and ultra processed food, people will still buy something if they see an ad.
The third theory is that the ads validate rail journeys by existing customers. People who already travel by train can now pretend that their usual service is just an aberration and that one day the trains will run just like in the adverts. Fools.
Other more eccentric theories are: that that TV companies can’t sell adverts on TV and are basically giving them away; the adverts are just an ego trip for rail company bosses; and that the government requires rail companies to advertise in the desperate hope of reducing the subsidies they need.
What’s the answer? Nobody knows. Something to think about next time you’re watching a railway company ad.
image from pixabay