Sunday, March 31, 2013

It's 2013 you say?

I know I haven't blogged in ages, shame on me, I know, hopefully this post is gonna be the restart of many more...

As many of you will know I am a wheelchair user. On Friday March 22nd I had to get from  Cork to Mayo as I was performing in the Ballina Arts Centre and then heading up to Donegal to perform in the Black Box in Letterkenny. 

So I traveled from Cork to Dublin by train with no problem, I then got on a train from Dublin to Westport needing to change at Manulla Junction to get to Ballina. The staff in Dublin were aware of this as were the staff on the train. There was another wheelchair user in the same carriage as myself, she was assisted off the train a stop or two before mine. I got to Manulla Junction, my work colleague got off the train and saw the ramp on the platform and went to hold the other train. Next thing the train I was still on pulled away, I pressed the assistance intercom, it beeped and beeped and beeped again, next stop was Castlebar!   

I was assisted off at  Castlebar by an Irish Rail dude who said to my assistant "oh we weren't expecting a wheelchair" I was fuming and said "really? I wasn't expecting to be here"! In hind sight I should have said, "funny, my chair wasn't expecting to be here. So he continued talking to my assistant, eventually he listened to me and arranged for a taxi to bring us to Ballina. 

This actually happened in Ireland in 2013!

1 comment:

  1. That's pathetic. Sorry you had to put up with that.

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