Fame at last

I thought I was pretty fair on my friends at Third Rate Western this morning when I was interviewed by BBC Points West on the (not quite as overcrowded as usual) 7:44 to Temple Meads. In fact, I even admitted that so far this year, the 7:44 has been quite reliable. But the point still had to be made that it's cheaper and faster to drive from Chippenham to Bristol that to get the train, and much less crowded.
No signs of the expected chaos from the fare strike at Bristol, although I was a few minutes ahead of Dom Joly and his film crew. Plenty of Police, though, to deal with the hardened criminals dodging their fares.
Did I mention I was on the telly?

There's space available

Here's an idea of exactly how much space is available on the Adelante. This was the 7:44 from Chippenham to Bristol Temple Meads. Interestingly, no-one was surprised about someone taking photos of the overcrowding.

So, Third Rate Western, are you really telling us that there's space available for passengers from Keynsham when this is the situation 2 stops earlier?

Official - Train Crew are Blind

According to the cheerful response from Third Rate Western to my latest rantogram,

The 0744 Chippenham to Bristol Temple Meads is timetabled to call at Keynsham to pick up commuters for Bristol, in order to ease pressure on local services. It does this because it has space available, even when running as an Adelante.

3 possible reasons for this conclusion: either the train crew are blind and can't see that the trains are full, or the train crew know damn well that the trains are full but can't be arsed to tell the management, or possibly the Third Rate Western management know damn well the trains are full because their staff and customers are telling them but they don't care. I wonder which it is.
On the bright side, though,

This will only be for a short time, as within a matter of weeks it will revert to a refreshed HST.

Hurrah! So now I get to walk into poorly refurbished sliding doors again.

More ranting elsewhere

Some more quality ranting for your enjoyment:

www.ihatefirstgreatwestern.blogspot.com

More Train Less Strain

Ah, some like-minded people on another website!

www.moretrainlessstrain.co.uk

I do like the idea of organising a protest...

Why Adelante?

Whilst standing in the useless Adelante train this morning at Keynsham, it was quite easy to read the new sign at the station telling people all about how HST services are now stopping there, and how people should take extra care because of the long train, short platform problem.

So why are we standing on an Adelante set?

It's just not working, is it?

This new timetable. It's just rubbish, isn't it? Putting aside the ridiculous overcrowding caused by replacing HST sets with Adelantes, this week has been nothing but delays and cancellations. The turnaround time at Temple Meads is still too short, meaning that even a small delay between Paddington and Bristol causes the outbound trains to be delayed.

More trains seem to be running from Weston Super Mare instead of Temple Meads with the inevitable delays that seem to occur on that stretch of line - and who is benefiting from this? No-one, that's who, because the trains from Weston are empty when they get to Temple Meads.

More trains are stopping at Keynsham. Why? Because Third Rate Western refuse to invest in new rolling stock.

More people are getting utterly sick of putting up with this poor excuse for a train service.

Is anyone listening?