« on: January 08, 2012, 06:40:39 PM »
After looking online at a route from Horwich Parkway to Leeds, I was told to get a train to Bolton, then to Manchester Victoria, then to Leeds.
I got to the station 5 minutes before the scheduled time, waiting for the train. After it was 10 minutes late, I texted the live departures service, which informed me that only coaches ran from Horwich on a Sunday.
I was informed by another passenger at the station that they had seen a coach pull up at the bus stop nearby at about 2:05pm (the time scheduled for the train). I recognise my problem for not looking properly and assuming it was a train and not a coach, but there was an absolutely shocking oversight of the people working on the coach (who absolutely MUST have seen the people on the platform waiting for the train), stood in the cold waiting for a non-existent train, and not even having the common sense to ask if anyone would be waiting for the train to Bolton/Manchester.
I'd accept this oversight if it was a larger station, but as it would only go towards Blackpool (stopping at Preston) and Manchester (stopping at Bolton), and both services needed coaches to their respective destinations, so some sense should have applied to ask who was heading to Manchester.
There also was no signs regarding the railworks on the Sunday (and thanks to the coach driver we now know that this will be on Sundays for the foreseeable future).
So instead of what would have been a (just under) two hour journey not 4 months ago (I had made this journey in August a few times), took me 4 and a half hours. As a result, I ended up being late for a deadline that I had been set.
The lack of notices is poor foresight (especially on an unmanned service), but the fact someone has driven the coach and not even acknowledged the fact there was about 10 people on the platform is outrageous. By the time the next coach came there was only two of us left at the station, as the others had left to presumably pursue other transport.
tl;dr I can accept one oversight (having made one myself) but multiple oversights is not good enough.
