Condemnation to oblivion
On Belgium’s trains
“Pourquoi il y a cinq personnes ici pour diriger les gens là, où ils doivent attendre pour payer leur billet de train, et en fait seulement une personne pour vendre les billets ?”
Image: Charleroi-Sud (south) railway station, some time in the early 1900s, when they used to take money.
I was just at Charleroi-Central station. It used to be called Charleroi-Sud; in fact for 179 years it was called Charleroi-Sud and there are some places in the city centre where it’s still called Charleroi-Sud (the local authority is taking its sweet time in changing the road signs). There is also a Charleroi-Ouest railway station, which is more like a wayside halt, without so much as a bus shelter to distinguish it from the famous chippie that resides on the forecourt to the erstwhile commuter station, but no one could mistake it for Charleroi-Central, not in a million years. Which is about the time it took me to buy my rail ticket this morning.
Upon entering the concourse at Charleroi-Central, I made, as usual, straight for the ticket machines, whereupon a lady approached me bearing the legend @ your service on her weskit.
“Vous allez où ?”
I turned to her. “Veltem, simple, deuxième classe.”
“Vous payez avec des billets ?” She meant de banque, since a billet (de train) was what I was buying, but I knew what she meant.
Yes, I was paying with bank notes.
“Ah, en ce cas, vous devez allez aux guichets.”
“Oké, où ça ?”
She directed me to a waiting area with a machine which, upon a colleague of hers pressing it, issued a “waiting” ticket, no. X3075. I looked at the “summons” board, and no. X3070 was being served. Only five to go.
X3070 seemed to be enquiring about a rail trip of four weeks around all of Europe, because the number simply stayed at X3070. At last the enquirer emerged from the privacy of the ticket counter area, and a new number was displayed: B1254. “B?” I asked myself and shifted up a little to look through the glass sliding doors. The “B” enquiries, it was clear, were being dealt with by exactly the same person as was dealing with the X enquiries. But, since my enquiry was an X enquiry, the number for X enquiries did not advance.
“At your service,” I mused to the lady who’d been so kind as to tell me that the Railway Company’s machines don’t accept the coin of the realm.
“Excusez-moi, je ne parle pas l’anglais,” she shrugged in reply, which I thought was typical for a Belgian Railway assistant who proclams herself to be ett yure servees.
“Sur votre gilet, la légende @ your service, at your service, c’est un jeu de mots.”
“Ah, oui, c’est un jeu de mots.”
“Ce n’est pas seulement un jeu de mots, c’est un jeu de pieds,” I replied, making my very own jeu de mots for her delectation and delight. She found it neither delectable nor delightful, but drew a visage. “Oui, vous jouez avec nos pieds. Juste parce que je ne suis pas prêt à prendre un emprunt bancaire pour acheter un billet de train. Et ça fait maintenant un quart d’heure d’attente.” And then I added my opening line, above: Why are there five people to direct passengers to where they can buy tickets, which is either from a self-explanatory machine or waiting interminably to buy one with real money, and yet there is only one person actually selling tickets?
A young mother with a toddler looked up at me from the apology of a seat on which she had perched herself and her young-un to wait patiently behind me to also buy a “for cash” ticket. Charleroi has seen better days, but les Carolais, as the burghers of this town are known, are still proud no matter how far they may have fallen. They may have little to no money, and they may do a fair bit of back-street dealing, where all that changes hands are bank notes. But the National, NATIONAL, if you don’t mind, railway company sees fit to consign to abject queueing those who won’t, or can’t, or are too desperate to be able to afford, to pay by quick, convenient bank cards. There’s no question about it: one clerk stationed in the ticket office and five to indicate to the foot-shuffling, queue-waiting paupers where they need to kick their heels whilst waiting to pay their way with money every bit as valid as a credit card, if not more so. Tell me I read that wrong.
I missed the Brussels train over the heads of it. I made the Louvain train, and it was warm and comfortable. And as I sat reading my book, I looked around at my fellow passengers, as they doom-scrolled their way into the Walloon countryside, and had no doubt all paid exactly the same as I had, but with an app.
Old technology is not a free choice. It is a condemnation to oblivion.