I am well and truly angry. It's Christmas... the busiest time of the year, especially on public transport as millions take to the railways and roads to travel.

I don't drive... can't afford it so I have to use the trains. Today I was trying to plan a journey I have to make tomorrow to get from the West coast to the East coast. Normally this takes 3 hours and at Christmas, you can be guaranteed the trains will all be heaving to overflowing.

However, I just learned today both my journeys - there and back home will be a minimum of 5 hours because at the busiest time of the year when everyone just wants to get where they're going, the rail network has closed a major stretch of the main line between Manchester and Sheffield. It's one of the busiest stretches of the line, so they shut it for Christmas and well into the New Year, guaranteeing chaos and misery for many thousands of people.

And then on January 2nd the smarmy bastards operating the rail network rub it in by whacking the prices up yet again. Fanfuckingtastic. Extra expense for millions of people who are starting to struggle because of Brown's mishandling of the economy.

It has been suggested that Britain is heading towards some kind of communist or fascist state. Is that why then the rail system is being decimated to such a dire standard to allow for a Mussolini type figure to come along cause misery for everybody (except the very rich of course) and get the trains running on time?

And then people wonder why some of us have no Christmas "spirit" or cheer left...

Good post - and shows that companies now ride roughshod over what is good for their customers.

Happy Christmas

This happened to my brother a few years ago. Main stretch of rail line closed between 23 Dec and 6 Jan. Journey time, and expense, increased.

If it's a matter of saftey due to damage on the line, I can understand the closure, but mostly it's just routine maintenance.