Adopt-a-Station with 'one'

Earlier this year whilst at Tottenham Hale waiting for the Stansted Express I picked up a copy of the 'one' rail franchise's newsletter. One article grabbed my attention - "Adopt A Station extended". The company was announcing that:

'one' railway stations on the Crouch Valley line - Althorne, Fambridge, Woodham Ferrers and Burnham - will soon receive makeovers thanks to the 'one' Adopt-a-Station initiative.

The scheme is aimed at improving lines of communication between the train operator and railway station users, encouraging feedback about the station buildings and facilities to make sure they meet the high standards expected by those that use them.

This seems to me to be a reasonably cynical excercise in corporate buck-passing. It isn't economical for the company to monitor their stations properly - but they can enroll their own customers into doing the reporting for them. I wish I had thought of getting some of the customers at Reckless to "adopt-a-rack" and to do the re-filing of stock for us in the record shop I used to work in.

Still, 'one' certainly need to look at the way they monitor their stations - this is after all the same company that was unable to provide CCTV footage of the murder of John Coffey at unmanned Wood Street station in Walthamstow because the system wasn't working.

Posted by Martin Belam, March 6, 2005
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