I splashed out £1932 at the end of December to get a season ticket for the trains between Bournemouth and Southampton. Seems a lot all in one go but it works out significantly cheaper than running a car just for the sake of getting to work and back.
I had previously been spending £10.10 a day on return tickets and the service had proved very reliable for the time I was using it between April and December last year. In fact, I think the longest delay that I had in all that time was 10 or 15 minutes.
Since I got my season ticket though, that’s all changed! In just the last fortnight I’ve had to endure two and a half hours of delays. First a train broke down just outside Bournemouth fouling the line. Unfortunately this was on the morning that I was going to Canterbury for the viva voce for my PhD! Not a good start! Yesterday, a broken rail at Brockenhurst meant that there were no trains running to Southampton all morning. I had to wait 45 minutes for a bus which then took an hour to get to Southampton rather than the half an hour that the train would take. And this morning the guard for my train went AWOL and was “delayed” for 20 minutes!
Last month my journey home on two successive days was screwed up by someone jumping/falling in front of a train at Hinton Admiral and by flooding at Sway.
Sadly, with a season ticket you don’t get any compensation on these delays until you renew. If I’d bought tickets on the day I would have been entitled to refunds on the price of my ticket for at least the problems with the broken down train and the broken rail.
Hopefully things get better soon! I don’t really want to be leaving an hour earlier than usual just in case things go pear-shaped :-/
