The Eurostar test to establish your breaking point, part 2

I took the train to Ebbsfleet International, as advised, at 5:25AM. Upon arrival, I endure what I will later learn to call a very very very short queue.

With only one train stopping at Ebbsfleet destined for Brussels (just after 1PM), I am advised to go to London St. Pancras to attempt boarding an earlier train. I explain I do not mind the wait, but I am further encouraged to travel to London when a train ticket is provided free of charge.

They make me rush to the platform only to have that train delayed and I am sent to yet another platform.

Shortly after 7AM I arrive to, quite possibly, the busiest train station I have ever seen and proceed to a ridiculously long queue in order to get a new ticket. It takes me half an hour to establish that my current queue, even though parallel to many others, is actually going nowhere. Proceed to change queues.

Now, the real test: four hours in the queue, surrounded by people from all nationalities, whose temper gets worse by the second, and no Eurostar employees to be seen. How are we managing to create a working queue system I will never know. I fear for my toes and fingers which are learning the meaning of frostbite, my bladder has definitely seen better days (the wonders of travelling on your own – no bathroom breaks whilst queueing) and, yet, I should be thankful I am not at the end of the line which has by now extended to the adjacent street outside the station.

Shortly after, the queue system breaks down and it takes the police a good while to restore a resemblance of order. Do you not love the people that complain for half an hour of individuals that jump a queue, proceed to jump the queue themselves, and continue to rant about such individuals for a further hour and a half?

Eurostar employees do not even have the common sense to divide passengers by destinations (France vs. Belgium) and outsiders start taking pictures (and even videos!) as if we were part of Edinburgh zoo’s penguin parade.

I eventually reach the ticket office and I am given a ticket for the train I would have boarded anyway, had I stayed in Ebbsfleet International. Exhaustion stops me from punching the lady placing the pretty sticker on my ticket. However, I do not leave her side without a grunt and a huff. I have a two-hour wait ahead of me.

In X-rays they are rude and pushy. I rush to passport check (highlight of the day so far: the guy at passport control has a stunning smile) and make my way to the toilets where, since I have not had enough, I get to queue a few more minutes.

Then I realise how light I feel. But it has nothing to do with my now empty bladder: I have forgotten my backpack at X-rays. I run there, where a security guard approaches me and asks sweetly if I am okay. My brain thinks “where should I begin?” but all that comes out of my mouth is: bag, mine. He nods, still smiling and I can feel all the blood in my face. I gather my belongings and proceed to a second round of passport control (I’ll take your number now…) and find a place on the floor of the station to sit.

Little by little the blood leaves my face and my hands stop shaking. As I start writing these words, I can see thousands of people waiting to board a Eurostar train. Different moods. Different nationalities. Different colours in their ticket’s stickers.

I am now finishing this text on the train. I am finally on my way to Brussels and, as I expected, I am already forgetting how much I have detested today. How frustrated I have felt. How much I would have liked to punch or yell at someone. It really was not that bad. I can feel my toes again. I will be at my sister’s in just over an hour.

I win, Eurostar. You did not break me.

The Eurostar test to establish your breaking point, part 1

Most of you will have heard of the recent chaos, compliments of the weather and/or Eurostar (who you choose to blame is completely up to you – the pretty Christamsy snow that welcomed the start of your holidays, or the train company unable to forsee and handle a crisis).

CEO Richard Brown has already apologised publicly for how things went down in the weekend before Christmas, where thousands of people were stranded in the tunnel connecting London with Paris and Brussels. Some passengers spent over half a day in the cold tunnel with no food or drink and uninformed of the actual situation. Several thousands were left in complete uncertainty in train stations, both waiting to board and waiting for loved ones to reach their destination.

Two days of disruption ensued and finally, on Tuesday 22nd, a system was put in place. There were some kinks in the plan but, all in all, it seemed fairly feasible.

I was one of the “lucky” ones to have a booked ticket for the week following the service interruptions, from Ashford International to Brussels Midi.

Now, it is important to state the outstanding ability I have for denial. I choose to believe things will work, I choose to believe that people will be logical and unattached during a crisis, I believe that chaos is not chaos at all, but a cumulus of forces acting under a distribution which I simply have not recognised.

This means that when they told me to come on Thursday for my Wednesday train journey, I accepted it. I even decided that, given the two days of practice under the revised timetable, things would run smoothly when my turn came.

Alas, nowhere in any of Eurostar’s websites was Ashford International mentioned. Most pieces of information referred to London St. Pancras and Paris. I phoned customer care and (after a few hours of unsuccessful dialing) I was told that it would be best to travel to Ebbsfleet International and board the Eurostar from there. Just as well since, as it turned out, no trains were to stop at Ashford International in its way to Brussels on this particular Wednesday at all.

In the early evening of Tuesday it was reported that the new system was woking so well, they were nearly finished with the backlog and were boarding people from future days. I called the call centre a second time to enquire if I should attempt boarding on the Wednesday after all. Not surprisingly, the phone agents’ guess was as good as mine. In accordance to my optimism, I opted to abandon plans of travelling on the Wednesday to give Eurostar an extra day to gather their bearings.

That same evening, Eurostar invited all remaining passengers to travel on Wednesday. Proceed to pack suitcase and set alarm clock bright and early.

I strongly believe Eurostar was merely testing its new customer relationship management programme by pushing its customers to breaking point. If this is not the case, I cannot comprehend how such an established company could arrange things so poorly, and I am willing to assign a zoo monkey the CEO position, for surely he could not have done the job worse.