Sunday 14 October 2012

thank you for travelling

In the Good Old Days you travelled as a passenger on a British Rail train, and that was that. (These Good Old Days to which I refer were, of course, after the original Golden Age of Rail Travel.)

Then BR was privatised, and suddenly we were all "customers" of a variety of different franchises. Signs sprouted in stations, saying "Thank you for Choosing to Travel with XYZ franchise", as if we actually had any choice in the matter.  Franchises are mostly geographical with little overlap (except for a few main lines), so if I want to go from Cambridge to London, say, I don't exactly have a vast array of rail operators to choose from.

Anyhow, franchises don't last for ever, which leads to continual repainting of rolling stock in their new liveries, and a continual need to change those "thank you" signs to the new franchise name.  Evidently they got fed up with all that palaver at my local station, which has resulted in a sign that was mildly irritating becoming simply ridiculous.


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