cerealjoe | Oh eff you, part 201482390482.

Dear SNCF, I still hate you - the Paris-Marseille edition.

Had I typed this up that same night, it probably would have been a lot more violent but two days later my general "oh well, it's SNCF after all" mindset that I seem to adopt in order to accept everyday SNCF blunders has made everything more tame...

Yes, the SNCF have managed to screw up even more than I have ever had the chance to experience previously. On Wednesday I ran to the train station from a work meeting in order to catch my TGV to Marseille to get the last bus home and when I got to the station I was rather surprised to see that there was no wagon #18 as indicated on my ticket. I went to see the SNCF people on the platform and they told me that it's actually wagon #8. So I went into wagon #8 but there was already someone at the seat I was assigned to, and quite rightly too as their ticket indicated that they had the same seat number as me but in wagon #8. Back to the SNCF peeps on the platform I went, along with many other people who were in my situation... at which point we were told to find a spot in the train wherever we could because technically there should be enough seats for everyone.

But of course there weren't. Why not? Because this train was supposed to be made up of two shorter TGVs put together but one of them did not arrive so only wagon 1-8 were present instead of wagon 1-18... so only a short train but the tickets had been sold as for a long train and the SNCF personnel were not even aware of it before the time the train was supposed to leave! Of course there were people everywhere and half us had nowhere to sit. Ten minutes after the train was supposed to leave we were told that people should get off the train and take the one leaving an hour later but many of us had to take this one train because we had other plans for the evening, I had the last bus to catch, some peeps had to be at Avignon before 8pm because otherwise the car rental place would be closed, etc. Some passengers did get off, the whole problem was not solved just now there were enough stairs and luggage racks for peeps to sit on rather than having a lot of people just having to stand for 3 and a half hours in the hallways. Comfy? Not really, but hey sometimes you shouldn't ask too much out of SNCF.

The cherry on the cake was the fact that not once did SNCF personnel apologize for the trouble, not once did anyone offer to compensate, even in a tiny part, for the delay, the fact that we had nowhere to sit, etc. Just over the speaker system a guy said that we were running with a 25 minute delay and that as we could see not everyone had a seat and that was because "someone higher up messed up" (said in a sarcastic voice). If anything that's one aspect of SNCF I really dislike, and it's not only the case of SNCF but also the case of many other companies in France, SNCF personnel do not seem to understand that the image of the company is affected a lot by the way they act. Nope, they just act rather snobbishly and ignore customers (who often paid close to 100e for the trip) because "it's not their fault" and they "cannot be held responsible". True, it's not directly their fault but what's the point of antagonising people who want some answers?

Good news though, in the end with rushing a bit in the metro and with a bit of running I did manage to get the last bus. Boo on you SNCF.

As always, it's important to remember that some people have had worse with the SNCF, some peeps had to be in a train for 24 hours over Christmas break when their original journey was suppsed to only last a single night. So yes, happy thoughts, let's look on the bright side, etc.

There are rather bright too...