Why are we stopping?

Somewhere between Bath and Bristol lie the tiny stations of Oldfield Park and Keynsham. But Third Rate Western's high speed trains don't stop there. I mean, the platforms are barely long enough for 5 coaches and the high speed trains have 8 coaches so stopping at short platforms would be risky at best, wouldn't it?

Enter the carefully-bred-in-a-factory-near-Trowbridge grade-A numpties from Third Rate Western. They've won another franchise and Wessex Trains is no more. But wait! Now all those people stuck at Oldfield Park and Keynsham (because the trains that stop there are only big enough to take half the people that want to use them) are Third Rate Western's problem! No longer can they just cruise past in their high speed trains thinking "at least those irate people aren't irate at us". So a Third Rate problem deserves a Third Rate solution, doesn't it? Of course it does.

It's not difficult to imagine the meeting where the morons at Third Rate Western discussed this sticky situation. I'm picturing it now...

Senior idiot: How do we increase capacity at Oldfield Park and Keynsham?

Trainee idiot: Well, we could invest in new rolling stock ensuring that the trains that stop there are bigger than an average sized family hatchback. How about that?

Senior idiot: What? Spend some of the millions of pounds we're taking from these people every year and invest it in providing a better service? You fool! Get out of my sight!

Another idiot: What if we just stop the high speed trains and pick up the extra people?

Senior idiot: Stop the high speed trains? But they are too long for the platforms, that would be dangerous. Not to mention that the people on them who are already stuck behind a pissy stopping service due to our timetabling numpties would be madder than hell. Genius! It's a plan with no drawbacks. Implement it immediately and break open the Champagne. But not the stuff we sell in the buffet, that's cheap shite that only an alcoholic hedge fund manager would drink.

So there we have it. The high speed trains stop at platforms which are dangerously too short for them, to pick up a handful of people, and all because Third Rate Western won't buy some new trains to replace the pissy stopping service rolling stock that they inherited from Wessex Trains.

Makes you proud to be British, doesn't it?