"CJB" wrote in message
oups.com...
Having arrived at Paddington that night hundreds of us boarded the
00.25 train for Hayes and Reading - and then sat, and sat, and sat
going nowhere - for nearly two and a half hours. No-one had any
specific info., nothing was announced although the train p.a.
crackled
now-and-again. All we were told was that "all of the lines had been
closed by the police due to an incident at Hanwell." And "No - we
couldn't even get to Ealing."

At Paddington there were no managers trying to sort things out.
There
were only four hapless station staff and two drivers trying to
organise
400+ tired passengers milling around not knowing what to do.

EVENTUALLY at 02.45 - fully two and half hours later - all that
FGWL/FGW could provide was a double decker bus for stations to
Reading
and a small coach for Oxford. Just these for 400+ passengers.

Nothing new there then.
When the railway works well it's best of all, but when it goes wrong
its very definately the worst.

Having got the bus to Reading via Hayes we then had to endure the
bus
driver steering with his left hand, with his right hand holding a
mobile phone to his left ear. Apparently he was talking to his
supervisor who must have known that he was driving a bus chock. full
of
passengers. In fact this bus was crammed with passengers standing
upstairs and downstairs and on the stairs, and such was his eratic
driving whilst on the phone that when he hit the median curb into
Hayes
the bus and everyone lurched sideways putting all of our lives at
risk.

I thought it was an offence to drive while using a handheld mobile.

As this was a very particular special it ought to be easy for the
police to identify the driver and his mobile phone records and with
your testomony should be able to get a successful prosecution -if they
were remotely interested.

However as such a prosecution might just/possibly/remotely damage
mobile phone sales or revenue streams I expect Tony Blair of the
'Labour will always put business first' party have introduced an
exception for vocational drivers. Now I come to think of it, the
number of HGV and van drivers I see using mobile phones confirms this
must be the case. ;-)

Roger