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This from Justin Case, Ventnor. Ed
A couple of weeks ago I left Ventnor to travel on public transport to Ryde. The closure of Leeson Road now requires that the No3 bus travels with all possible haste from Ventnor toward Shanklin Station in order to get you on to the thirteen minutes past the hour train.
The bus arrived at the Station with a solid thirty seconds in hand and so I leapt on to the train platform faster than Batman can say ‘Holy timetable crimes, Robin!’ to find that the train had gone a few minutes before – South Western Railways having modified the timetable.
Once bitten?
So you’d think that when I left home once again, this time for London Waterloo, that I’d learned my lesson, wouldn’t you? On this occasion I’d decided to play it safe and catch an earlier bus and put up with a bit of a wait at Shanklin Station. I caught the twenty past eight bus from outside Boots. The bus skittered over the potholes of Ventnor and Wroxall with the feet of angels – well, tyres anyway. The bus was a green streak, wooshing imperiously past the donkey sanctuary, the resulting vacuum tearing shreds of straw from the donkeys’ cud-chewing mouths. You can’t fault Southern Vectis bus drivers for trying their best to keep to the timetable.
Three hours from Ventnor to Portsmouth
The bus arrived at the station at ten minutes to the hour. So, plenty of time. Except that the train was now not leaving until half past the hour. Had they changed the timetable again? Not at all. In their wisdom, South Western Railways have organised a strangely excentric train timetable whereby the train only lines up with a ferry every two hours, which meant I missed the ferry leaving from Ryde. I checked the hovercraft times but it made no difference to the train logistics.
I finally managed to get the 11:15 train out of Portsmouth Harbour, meaning that the journey from Ventnor to to the train at Portsmouth was a few minutes short of three hours. Until fairly recently I could easily have done it in half that time. Yes, there are better times of the day to travel where the transport times line up more favourably, but that works only if you have the luxury of not being driven by a work agenda.
Unacceptable journey times enforced on us by the railways
With all the mischief that the ferry companies have visited upon the people of the Isle of Wight, Wightlink have at least mostly kept their passenger times from Ryde to being at a reliable 15 minutes to the hour during the day and 15 minutes past the hour coming back. Even Southern Vectis Buses makes a nod at joined up thinking in their timetables, but South Western Railways seem not to have got the hang of a connected service and train times are increasingly arbitrary.
To add to the burden of needing to pay eye-watering prices for the moral crookery of the ferry crossing, we must also put up with increasingly unacceptable journey times enforced on us by the railways, thus making us prisoners to a broken transport system. This further diminishing the economic prospects of every person living on the Isle of Wight.
What is reason enough to nationalise public transport?
Now, I’m not really suggesting a tunnel under the Solent. I just said that in the title to, you know, make you click. Yes, yes, I’m no better than the rest, damnit. But questions need to be answered such as what is reason enough to nationalise public transport? And what does Government consider enough of a crossed red line to finally take action against these and other toxic business practices.
Perhaps we will elect a Government that has the wit and fortitude to address these issues. Or we can allow wishful thinking to continue to triumph over experience and welcome back the existing bunch.
The choice is yours.
