‘Make yourself a happy bunny this Easter with cheap tickets and egg-cellent deals!’ chirped the Abellio train company advert.
I use Abellio’s Greater Anglia service regularly from London and was looking forward to a nice fluffy ride to Norwich. I was late for the 9 a.m. train but the Liverpool Street station Abellio assistant smilingly informed me I wouldn’t need to pay extra for the later train. I bought a cup of coffee and presented my ticket to the barrier staff at platform 11. A dignified-looking man of African origin with ritually scarred cheeks seemed to be unusually officious. Tapping my ticket with the sharp end of a pencil he said: ‘This will not do. Show me your ID. Please.’
I fished out my University of East Anglia lecturer card. (It was all I had.) ‘I am afraid that’s not possible,’ he added flatly.
‘Impossible? What’s not possible?’
‘It’s not possible for you to get on the train with that. You will have to go to the Abellio ticket office.’
‘I can’t miss a second train to Norwich!’
‘It makes no difference to us. You will have to go to the Abellio office,’ he said with intensifying satisfaction.
Already I could feel the deadly stranglehold of privatised railway red tape. There was plenty of inefficiency in the state railway monopoly of the 1970s but British Rail surely had provided a less expensive and more accountable service. Abellio is not even British: it is part of Dutch state railways and clogged up at all ends (they say) with superannuated rolling stock.
‘You must go to the office!’ The man put on his best official voice. ‘This ticket will not do.’ Exasperated, I retrieved my credentials and made my way up the platform towards the waiting train regardless.
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