Is that the best you can do?
My local DART station, Greystones, was recently named the Best DART station in Iarnród Éireann’s annual Best Station Awards.
According to the Press Release, “Joe Gunning [with whom I have had several unsatisfactory customer experiences] accepted the award for the ‘well maintained and welcoming station’”.
In defence of the station, I can see how the judges thought it was a welcoming station, as, since it opened in 1999, the electronic information diplays on the platforms have only ever displayed the message “Welcome to Greystones”, instead of providing details on arriving & departing trains, as they are designed to, leading to a common confusion over whether your train is late, or has already left. Personally, I would rather be well-informed than welcomed.
Continuing on the theme of lack of information, it’s almost always guesswork as to which platform your train will arrive at/depart from, leading to hordes of confused commuters bustling from one side of the footbridge to the other, attempting to predict which platform they need to be on today. And strangely, when people need information, the sole staff member at the station’s ticket desk seems to disappear.
Again, I would agree partly with the Press Release, that the station’s facilities are “well maintained”. The few facilities there are, that is. Recently, to increase the efficiency of the maintenance process I suppose, the toilets were closed temporarily. Shortly after a notice of this closure was put up in the lobby of the station, the word “temporarily” was Tipp-Ex’d over, presumably to permanently save the staff from this maintenance.
At least the staff are proficient in the job they do. So proficient in fact, that one particularly experienced employee is able to print your ticket, take your fare, and give change (though, amazingly, not able to answer queries), all without looking up from the movie he watches on his portable DVD player.
Getting there?. My Arse.
</rant>
April 4th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Haha excellent. At least the skinny lad that accepted the award isn’t as bad as the ginger lad that works there. He’s a prick.
June 22nd, 2007 at 5:59 pm
I like to see the ginger lad. He is very helpful, always popping over the road to buy fags for the local teens.
It would be nice if he was there to serve Iarnród Éireann’s customers too but he is at least doing a public service. How else will the youth of Greystones get to smoke their 10 Marly a day.
Perhaps he should start selling booze too.
September 7th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
You should definetly forward this to someone on http://www.irishrail.ie