I’m now happy when my trains are late, which is often. You may even have told me “Yes!” seen mumbling. and raising a clenched fist in the air as my late so-called express creeps into Oxford or Paddington stations, more than 15 minutes late.
After almost fifty years of being dragged up and down this dilapidated stretch of track every day, inefficiently and often slowly, it is a big change in my life.
Why is this? It’s very simple. Thanks to the ‘Delay Repay’ system, I can request compensation every time my Hitachi ‘high-speed train’ is more than 15 minutes behind schedule.
I’m thinking of putting a little cheery bell on my home computer so I can say “Kerching!” as I file each report. So far the system has paid out more than five dollars every time without complaint, and since I have a season ticket so expensive I’m too embarrassed to tell you what it costs, I’ve already gotten enough cash to pay for some decent bottles of wine.
What a change this is. The journey is only 60 miles round trip, but there are so many excuses for being late: either someone has driven a truck into a bridge at Slough or Langley. Or there is a ‘signal failure’, which used to mean that gangsters from the Balkans had stolen the cables.
Or there is a ‘point error’. Isn’t it surprising that signals and points, invented by the Victorians more than a century ago, fail so often?
Or we have a ‘track circuit error’, whatever that is. Or there are ‘violators on the line’. I’ve also experienced “cows on a leash” (I actually saw this one, so I know it was true).
Or the astonishingly frequent decision by the signal box, many miles away, to allow the hugely expensive Japanese-designed machine I’m traveling in, which can theoretically reach a speed of 140 miles per hour, to creep behind a windy 1970s train bus that stops at every station. Looking back, I’m surprised I’ve never had a real stroke.
Hasn’t the time come in a dilapidated Britain to accept that things will never get much better and simply demand compensation?
I’ve been tempted more than once to jump off the train and walk home, but of course the doors are locked now and that’s not possible. Either way, that would probably make me a “leash trespasser.”
Yet the muttered curses, pounding pulses, gnashing of teeth and furrowed brows of the past are forgotten. I no longer frown and snarl at the pathetic announcements and useless excuses blaring from the speakers.
What was the point, I wouldn’t say to anyone in particular, of an apology without the intention of improving their behavior. If I could apologize to them, I said, I would end up being rich.
Well, now I can actually cash them in, because as the train starts to run late again, I smile smugly at the slowly passing landscape and start calculating how much I could benefit from this. This does nothing to improve the service. I confidently expect things to get worse soon. All my friends on the line tell me this is inevitable given the way the railways are run. But hasn’t the time come in a dilapidated Britain to accept that things will never get much better, and simply demand compensation?
Let’s extend the ‘Delay Repay’ program to all other aspects of life. Stuck in line for your passport on your way back from vacation? If the Home Office had to immediately pay out a tenner to anyone who waited more than 20 minutes, a family of four would get £40. Think about it. I promise you will immediately care less. Spend it on a pizza when you finally get home.
Forced to wait an hour to speak to a government official or a bank? Get 50p for every minute over five you have to wait (which happens to be Reform’s position, after today announcing a £30 discount for every caller held on hold by HMRC for more than 30 minutes).
Was that degree they encouraged you to do useless? Get 25 percent of your loan repaid. Personally, I’d like a way to grill movie and TV critics for telling me that certain crap is “riveting” or “unmissable” when missing it would actually have improved my life, but I understand that this may be difficult to calculate.
As for political manifestos, where should we start? I suspect that if the Government had to give every taxpayer £10 back for every illegal migrant who comes ashore in a dinghy, His Majesty’s Treasury – by far the most powerful government department – would make a real effort to stop the boats.
Let’s extend the ‘Delay Repay’ program to all other aspects of life, writes Peter Hitchens
There I am, three quarters of the way home, and the train is fourteen minutes late. Instead of urging him to make up time, I long for a quick cow on the leash. And then ‘Kerching!’
Apply ‘Delay Repay’ to potholes, or to the failure of the police to prosecute drug possession, burglary and vandalism, and you can also change your mind at the local police station.
I think I could also come up with a formula to get money back for any outbreak of bias at the BBC.
Something also needs to be done about all those super-cautious weather forecasts that predict heavy rain showers and flashes of lightning for days and nights that ultimately remain clear and dry.
The problem, of course, is that people – and I could be one of them – could become so fond of all that extra tax-free money incessantly flowing into their bank accounts that they might become complacent about the problems that are causing the delays and failures in the first place. Maybe they even start wanting the trouble. This has definitely happened to me.
There I am, three quarters of the way home, and the train is fourteen minutes late. Instead of urging him to make up the time, I long for a quick cow on the line, or perhaps one more time stuck behind that ever-present slow-moving service, to safely push the delay past 15 minutes. And then ‘Kerching!’
For really long delays, the payments can be even greater, and thanks to this a friend of mine has been able to travel virtually for free on a particularly difficult route for several months. She seems remarkably cheerful about it, considering the hours she’s wasted watching the buttercups growing next to the line.
This is the choice before us. Sort the country, or demand money because nothing is working. I’m sorry to say that it’s quite easy to figure out which is more likely.
