“On a dark, miserable December morning, just after 7am, taking the (ridiculously early to me as I am not a earlybird) train from Cardiff to Bristol. Two trains in fact. I bought my £20 ticket at my local station. But when I changed trains at the central station for the mainline service to Bristol, my ticket was nowhere to be found. Not in any of my eight pockets. Or in my backpack. I must have dropped it when leaving ttain 1 for train 2 – argh!
I was panicked. Because 1. I did not wanna shell out another £20. And 2. I did not want to deal with the train conductor who, in my experience, are highly miserable and tend to take great delight in shaming train passengers for not having the right ticket let alone not having a ticket at all. So as I got on the mainline train I decided my best bet was to find the train conductor straight away and explain my situation. I was loathe to take a seat and wait for them to get to me.
I found Neil. And wow, WOW, Neil the train conductor was a ray of sunshine on a dark, pre-sunrise December Wednesday. He was upbeat and helpful and said in the friendliest Bristolian accent (big up my hometown!) ‘No problem, lost ticket, it happens! I’ll mention you to the platform staff when we pull in at Filton. They know me and they’ll sort you out.”
And true to his word, HE DID! And the equally lovely platform staff at Filton wrote me a ‘permit to travel’. Which covered my return journey home and was accepted just fine by Transport for Wales staff at when I returned to Cardiff that evening.
I was really anxious about losing my ticket. I was really anxious about explaining my situation to the train staff. But Neil was friendly, approachable, reassuring and solution-focused.
Moral of the story: Be more like Neil everyone – and especially train staff!”
Big thank you to Talia Loderick for sharing Neil’s kindness with us!