May I congratulate London Midlands on their wonderfully cynical, money-grabbing response to the floods at Malvern Link station on Wednesday morning (February 12).
With the train the only viable option to travel to Worcester they were naturally incredible busy, to which they thoughtfully decided to respond by putting on no fewer than five ticket inspectors on the platform yet no more ticket vendors.
They also decided to hypocritically insist that you could not board without a ticket, when on every other day of the year this is allowed and the conductor will sell you one.
If the rules (or 'conditions of carriage' that were stated ad nauseum by the inspectors) state you cannot board without a ticket and buy one on the train then that is fine, but they could at least be applied consistently.
To change tack on the busiest day of the year simply beggars belief.
The end result? Among the people who were physically restrained from getting on the 8:08 included a trainee engineer who subsequently missed the start of his exam and a heavily pregnant woman reduced to tears as she missed her job interview.
And train companies wonder why they get a bad reputation.
Jamie Whitmore
Malvern
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