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I WAS only trying to get home from Thomastown, but I might as well have boarded the hell ride from Calcutta. When I took the train last weekend, I regressed into my childhood. You know what CIE stands for? Cycling is Easier. The song we used to sing to while away the hours waiting for a train? CIE a misery, doo da, doo dah; CIE a robbery doo da doo da day. Times have changed, but not for our marvellous, friendly and efficient train system.
I had spent the weekend luxuriating in the Mount Juliet Health Spa, but five star efficiency soon disappeared on the Thomastown platform. The station was closed. After spending so much money on Denis O'Brien's mobile phone network, it appears that CIE cannot afford overtime. Raucous crowds began to gather with bags of booze. I was lucky to spot a seat and squashed in. The boozing crowds were not so lucky.
CIE are perfectly happy to sell seats to people knowing there is no room on the train; if Ryanair did the same Mary O'Rourke would be out of that bath quicker than you could say tally'ho. Last weekend was the first time CIE decided to insist passengers book their seats to Cork. Those getting the Waterford train were not extended the same courtesy. More disappointed crowds boarded in Kilkenny. We chugged on a few miles until the train stopped in the middle of a cow field on the way to Carlow. We were duly informed the engine had failed.
Yes, that's right "failed". In the day when motorists have to ensure their cars pass an NCT test, the clapped out ole hell-ride had packed it in. It was a lock-in. Appropriately, the drinking, lewd comments and renditions of the Fields of Anthenry intensified. One poor girl collapsed as soon as she reached the top of the queue for the bar, which was about as long as the train. The voice hiding behind the loud speaker asked if there was an engineer, sorry, I mean doctor travelling with us. As the filthy windows steamed up, people stuck their heads out gasping for air as if they were on a gas train to Auschwitz.
"Would the people sticking their heads out the windows stop," said the driver of the train that had not budged for nearly an hour. Well said, better people collapse rather than face the dangerous elements outside in the cow field.
A new engine arrived and we began to travel backwards (yes folks, backwards) to Kilkenny. After a two-hour delay we set off for Dublin again. Someone found a spare seat the toilet seat and sat on it while leaning out the door to talk to friends strewn across the floor outside. Another doctor was called for. There was puking, there was fainting, ghetto blasters were blaring.
Then the brave ticketmaster arrived on the scene, looking for his fare. I could barely see him through the cigarette smoke; barely hear him over the singing and shouting of the poor creatures confined to the toilet area. I refused to cough up the £12.50. He could kick me off the train he warned (where was he when we were stuck in the field?). In normal circumstances he would be ringing the boys in blue. (They could have filled up 10 police vans with drunk and disorderly offenders before they reached me.) I wasn't budging.
He then told me that I was not insured without a ticket. The fact that this meant I was not insured since I boarded the train in Thomastown three hours earlier was of no importance (CIE have since assured me that you are in fact insured when you board the train, ticket or no ticket). He took my name and address, I await my summons.
I boarded the train manicured, massaged and detoxed; I disembarked "The CIE One".
Minister O'Rourke free me, not from six months in prison or a £500 fine, but from CIE. If a taxi broke down, the passenger would not be expected to pay the fare. If you got a rancid meal in a restaurant, you wouldn't pay. If you were served a mouldy ham sandwich on a Ryanair flight, you'd send it back. Sorry, they don't give you sandwiches on Ryanair, but who cares.
Minister, it's time to send in an entrepreneur. No, Mary, not Denis O'Brien this time. But your good friend Michael O'Leary.
Our filthy, incompetent, monopoly of a train system needs privatising. Which brings to mind a wee song, that ironically was not sung by the choir on the Calcutta Express.
"They find out where the engine's been hiding, there's a goods train from Kilrush comin' in, perhaps it comes in two hours, perhaps it breaks down on the way, if it does says the guard be the powers, we're hear for the rest of the day ... (all together now) ... Are ye right there Michael are ye right? Do you think we'll be there before the night?"
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