Chaos on the trains this morning, for the first time in a while. I didn’t mind, of course, as it’s not like I had anywhere important to get to(!), and it was rather pleasant sitting out on the platform in the sun.

When I arrived at the station, the backlog of trains that had built up was causing the announcement system to go into overdrive. South West Trains introduced their Customer Information System about a year ago across my bit of the network. You know the sort of thing, those electronic boards that tell you when the next train is due, and an automated recorded announcement conveying the same information over the loudspeaker in a comforting generic English accent.

The system works fine when the trains are on time. Unfortunately, it’s not very good at predicting accurate delays when they aren’t. It gives out helpful information, like telling you that your train is expected 5 minutes ago. Also, and I think this is my favourite, when a train comes through your station but isn’t going to stop, the automated announcement over the speakers that you should “please stand clear [as] the next train is not due to stop at this station” quite often occurs after that train has passed through the station at high speed. I’ve often wondered if “South West Trains – Even The Announcements Are Late” might not be a good slogan for their advertising literature.

The other thing that always makes me smile is the fact that this computer system apologies to you when the trains are late. [“I am sorry to announce that the 07:30 service to London Waterloo is delayed by approximately 15 minutes. I am very sorry for the delay to your service.”] I mean, I’ve long suspected that all that “we’re very sorry for the delay to your service” stuff was a bit of a token gesture when it’s made by a human being, but when it’s a computer speaking, it is rather lacking as a gesture on the part of the train company (and, frankly, rather patronising. I’m an hour late for work? Well, the computer apologised to me, so that’s ok then…).

This morning, as I arrived at the station, I was greeted by continual automated loudspeaker announcements about the backlog of delayed trains. The recorded computer announcement was “extremely sorry for the severe delay” to one, but only “very sorry for the delay” to another. And the train I had been due to catch? Well, it was only “sorry for the delay” to that one. Somehow, I feel cheated. I’ll be writing a strongly worded letter, you know…