In message , at 11:10:38 on
Sat, 2 Nov 2013, Richard remarked:
We are being coerced into having to trust potential adversaries.

I like the pithiness of that statement, it brings to mind recent
revelations about how our governments and others are spying on us
routinely... I think it just depends upon where you place a transport
operator/authority on that "adversary" scale, and I don't, really.

You've never encountered a GNER gripper; I can tell.

I once spent most of the trip from Peterborough to London arguing the
toss with several intransigent GNER staff over whether my ticket
qualified me for a free cup of coffee. It did, but they only conceded
after a protracted fight.

Compare and contrast to the ECML's current incumbent where such
arguments are almost guaranteed when the "free" First Class catering is
only available to people whose trip is over 70 minutes, and some
schedules from Grantham to London are more than 70 minutes and some are
less. (And they aren't brave enough to come out and say that Grantham is
either "always in" or "always out", regardless of how many milliseconds
either side of the 70 minutes they are scheduled for).
--
Roland Perry