On Oct 21, 1:14*pm, CJB wrote:
Yesterday evening - Monday 20'th - in the middle of the rush hour -
the LED departure board system at Paddington went u/s. THOUSANDS of
commuters ended up milling around with no-one knowing which platforms
their respective trains were departing from. The hapless staff knew
even less, and there wasn't a gold-braided manager in sight. Naturally
Paddington being one of the least organised of our major stations,
train departures never have regular departure platforms - unlike say
Amsterdam where the platforms are timetabled and rarely switched - no-
one knew what the hell was going on. PA announcements were made but
the wonder of this station is that the acoustics are perfect for
echoes and so the announcements were indistinct as usual. Even the
staff had a problem repeating what had just been announced. The BTP
were in attendance - not to help out - but to ward off irate commuters
from approaching the FGW gate line staff. CJB.

Reading a CJB piece on FGW is a bit like reading an Andrew Gilligan
piece on Ken Livingstone, isn't it?

I had an excellent set of journeys on FGW over the weekend (London -
Reading, Aldermaston - Reading, Reading - Bristol, Bristol -
London).

All the trains were on time, and while the absence of departure LEDs
at Aldermaston was a bit disconcerting (I hate being at a country
station with a limited service and having no idea whether it's running
OK or not), the automatic tannoys did a reasonably good job of making
up for it.

The refurb HSTs have comfortable seats, and the table trays are
definitely laptop-sized. Although they are, definitely, too damn
bright. The night setting of 50% would probably be about right for
daytime; a 25% setting would work for night; saving 100% for
interrogating fare-dodgers. Also, have they really turned the tiolet
in coach A into a staff-only bog (and if so, err, why exactly?). And
was amused by the 'normals' getting off saying 'I like these new
trains, but why on earth have they fitted the old-fashioned slamming
doors to them?'

Although the weekday off-peak single fare of GBP14 to Reading is a bit
thieving. And why on earth does the line from Banbury to Oxford need
closing quite so often - what're they doing to it, compared with the
mainline...? (or is it just that it's 2-track rather than 4-track, and
so total closure is the only option)

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org