Avanti Worst Coast, more like.

British train travel – the theatre of the absurd where passengers are so often left to play a soul crushing game of musical chairs before being left to inhale chemical bog fumes whilst huddled on a vestibule floor. It wouldn’t be so galling but a standard class open return from London to Glasgow will now run you just shy of four hundred quid. A few days ago (Sept 20th, 24) I found myself amidst this charming chaos whilst braving a familiar journey from Lancaster to London.

Predictably, my intended train was so full that neither I nor my luggage stood a chance. No space for me or my worldly possessions? No problem! Laden and knackered I disembark with a resigned sigh and await a slower, later train. After all, what can I do? Being resilient to travel inconvenience has become a symbol of national identity, like queuing, but less dignified.

At some indistinct point in the Midlands – where the fields and pylons turn into a beige smear of commuter purgatory – a woman boarded, visibly nervous. She flashed the e-ticket on her phone at me, unsure if she was even on the right train. “London Euston?” she asked, earnestly. She explained there were two trains, a mere six minutes apart, both headed to the same destination and wasn’t sure if this was the right one?

I wanted to explain that rail travel in this country is less about getting from A to B and more of an existential question: are any of us on the right train? But as English wasn’t her first language and she was so obviously worried about doing the wrong thing, I told her I didn’t know for sure if her ticket was the right one, but this train was bound for Euston, so it seemed like a safe enough bet. I’ve done my fair share of bungling public transport abroad; mistakes happen, and if the world were fair and sane, and people were kind and decent they’d be treated with the grace they deserve.

But alas, grace and decency aren’t really words we tend to associate with UK rail travel, we’re more familiar with phrases like, ‘closed due to staff shortages’, ‘rail replacement bus’, and ‘toilet out of order’.

I didn’t notice her again until later when the train manager arrived, demanding tickets with the air of a prison officer snapping on a latex glove. I was absorbed in some work, headphones in, but still managed to clock their interaction dragging on longer than seemed necessary. She looked distressed, and so I did something that being both autistic and English, I’m never keen to do, I removed my headphones and got involved.

Turns out, she was on the wrong train. The punishment for the heinous crime of boarding the wrong overpriced, overbooked cattle car – was to either cough up £57 immediately or face a staggering fine of £210 at Euston. If she couldn’t pay, well, the next stop would be an encounter with the notoriously reasonable and compassionate London Metropolitan Police.  

She emptied her bum bag with the humility of someone who knew it wasn’t laden with a money clip of crisp folded notes because she’d already dropped an inordinate wad on the ticket she’d previously purchased. I don’t know her financial situation, and it would be wrong to make assumptions, but I do recognise that look of panic. She was nervous, embarrassed and trying her best to politely communicate compliance. As a person whose journeys have been frequently derailed due to neurodivergent oversights which are then compounded by a deficit of funds to correct them; I’m only too aware of how little, good intentions matter when it comes boarding the wrong Pendolino.  It’s hard to pin point the exact moment that train managers stopped behaving like human beings, but I’d wager common sense and empathy went off the rails at roughly the same time said rails were sold to rapacious international investors with zero interest in the finances or wellbeing of the nation’s commuters.

So, foolishly believing that reason might still have a seat on this train, I decided to step in. I explained to the manager that I’d looked at her ticket earlier, and that it appeared to be some sort of Kafkaesque puzzle only solvable by the gods of Avanti West Coast. So, if even I, a native and frequent traveller, couldn’t decipher whether her ticket was correct, surely, she wasn’t at fault, and should be helped and not punished.

His response? “Well, you should pay the fine then.”

And there it was. The essence of the modern bureaucrat: the sneering, righteous embodiment of "just following orders." Sixty quid is not pocket change for me. As a freelance artist living in a small council flat in East London, it’s a decent chunk of my grocery budget. But I’m also autistic, and we have this annoyingly heightened justice sensitivity (it’s a thing, Google it). So, I paid the fine.

Why? Well, it was more out of anger than anything. Because the alternative was watching this woman be treated like a criminal for the scandalous offense of being a bit confused. Because the train manager was a bully with a uniform, a jobsworth who’d rather batter someone with an invisible rulebook than use a modicum of human discretion. It wasn’t his job to help; it was his job to extort, to milk the system for every penny he could possibly extract. I’m genuinely curious about what motivates such a lack of conscience. Usually, it’s stress and trauma that diminish empathy, but this wasn’t that, it was something uglier and less forgivable.

It’s a pattern, isn't it? A creeping cruelty, papered over with the excuse of “Just doing my job.” But let’s be clear: following orders is not a moral defence. The moment we abandon compassion in favour of rote policy enforcement, we are at fault. The corporation might have policies, but we, as humans, have a far greater duty to each other.

So, Avanti West Coast, tell me, is this policy? Or was this man just a rogue bully with a despot complex?  If it’s the former, you should be boycotted, because denying your employees the discretion to be fair and reasonable is despicable. If it’s the latter, this man needs to be reprimanded. The number on his ticket machine bag was 3764, it was the train from Lancaster arriving in at London around 18:40. If it’s an amalgam of policy from the company and petty tyrany from the train manager then it’s just more evidence that the whole system is rotten and should be re-nationalised.

I wasn’t sure whether it was worth the effort to write this. Most likely not. How many incidents like this happen daily on British trains? I’ve experienced countless comparable incidents over the years. I suppose our only recourse is to shame operators like Avanti into better serving their customers. Because, if this is Avanti West Coast’s idea of service – punishing bewildered travellers instead of helping them – then they deserve to boycotted. I’m sure there’s a joke here somewhere about using our platforms for good, but I’m too fatigued to think of one. If you’re a high up at Avanti West Coast, or you’re a train manager on one of their trains, just try to be better than this. Things are awful enough.

If you're reading this and you have any clout, please share and tag in Avanti West Coast. Because Bullying only gets worse when it goes unchecked, and at the end of the day, no one should be extorted and criminalised for being confused, or disabled.