True stories from the Great Railway Disaster

A weekly chronicle of the absurdities of privatisation No 92: So you want to renew your season ticket?

Bob Lawrence realised his annual season ticket from Oxford to London was about to expire and a couple of weeks ago he went along to Oxford station to enquire about the procedure for renewal. It was due to run out on 11 October, which was a Friday, so he was told to present himself on Monday 14 October with a cheque for pounds 3,280 payable to British Rail (Thames Trains) and all would be hunky-dory.

No chance. The clerk had failed to remember that over that weekend, the company was to be privatised and handed over to the new operator, a management buy-out team. Therefore when Mr Lawrence presented his cheque, he was told it could not be accepted since the appropriate payee was now 'Thames Trains Limited' and was not part of British Rail. Mr Lawrence was unable to change the cheque because it was a season ticket loan from his employer and would take a couple of weeks to replace.

He is not a happy man, having had to pay full price peak fares for the past week. He has written a complaint to Thames Trains, pointing out that at the very least he should have been warned about the change or, even better, "interim arrangements should have been made so cheques might be acceptable to either former or new payee".