"He sarcastically shouted "You want taxis? I'll call taxis. I'll give you the money myself to get taxis. Would that make you happy, sir?"

You should have said 'Yes, actually it would' ;)

"But then there's public service. The trouble with public service is that the public are a bit of an anonymous blob. While the customer standing in front of you, wanting to give you money, might be a member of the public, he ain't the public. If you work in public service, your job is not to serve him."

Precisely. However, the Government, in it's infinite wisdom, now refers to taxpayers as 'customers' (and criminals as 'service users', but that's another argument...) in all its departments, yet has done nothing to change the way they are actually treated.

There used to be a very simple solution: cut down all the trees anywhere near a railway line.

In the steam train days of course the trees were just back lest a rogue spark set them alight. This isn't necessary now hence the leaves falling that much closer to the tracks.

I think that most British trees are pathetic little excuses for trees and should be chopped down forthwith.

The rail companies are not public. They are privately owned. Their responsibilities are very clear - the customer is HMG, not you. So long as the rail company fulfills the terms of its franchise, which it is often paying money for the privilege of running, then its contract will get renewed.

sanbikinoralon:
Northern Ireland railways (NIR) is publically owned. See Wikipedia
It's the only place in the UK where the Government retained ownership of the railways.

I just knew someone was going to cleverly point out that the trains were privatised. I even provided a link to NIR's site, so that people could easily check before commenting; I even included the fact that it was not me but a member of NIR's staff, who you'd think would know, who pointed out their publicly-fundedness. But no. There's always one.