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.