The man wasn't looking good - pale; eyes closed, head bowed, dabbing perspiration from his brow with a ragged piece of tissue. Why was he in such a bad way? Because the poor bloke had been standing all the way from Swindon to Paddington - a journey which should have taken an hour, but took 20 minutes longer because we had to divert onto the relief line between Reading and Maidenhead due to a train with mechanical problems.
So what was the reason behind this poor commuter's distress on the way to London this morning? A missing carriage. It was coach D's turn this morning to vanish without trace, but recently it seems to me there has been a spate of missing carriages. It's my rough estimate that around half of the trains I've caught to London in the morning over the last few weeks seem to have be affected by missing carriage syndrome.
Yes, the case of the missing carriages seems to have become a major issue on the Bristol-Paddington service of late - surely a mystery worthy of the great Sherlock Holmes himself? Where do these carriages go? What nefarious villains are behind their disappearance? Has the vile Professor Moriarty returned to hatch some evil scheme involving whipping First Great Western's rolling stock.
Now, I may be wrong, but I have a suspicion that FGW doesn't have to report incidents of missing carriages to the regulator. This is annoying because all it takes is one carriage to be pulled from a rush hour HST to transform a reasonable journey into the rail equivalent of a mobile battery chicken farm with people standing for an hour or more.
So where are all these carriages going? Well, I have developed a number of theories of my own, the most likely being:
1. They are being used as temporary accommodation for prisoners at several over-crowded jails around the country.
2. They are situated in a number of lay-bys on 'A' roads where they are being used as kebab and snack bars.
3. First Great Western has lost them.
4. They have been broken up for firewood.
5. They are being used for new low cost starter homes in various parts of the South West.
6. Er...that's it.
So wherever these carriages are, First Great Western, can you please get them back on your trains so passengers from Swindon and Didcot at least have a fighting chance of sitting down in the morning unlike the poor guy I watched earlier...and the 30 or so other people crowded into the gangway alongside him.
It's elementary, First Great Western.
10 comments:
ummm you may have noticed by the HST fleet is being refurb'd. Guess what - they cant do that whilst the train conveys you to Paddington so....yes youve guessed it.....they sometimes have to take a carriage out of the formation of the train and refurb it in the depot. You really are thick as pig shit at times
Dickhead!!!!!!!!!!
As has been mentioned, the refresh program for the HST's is still going on. So until that is complete expect to see more short-formed sets.
Holmes also famously said "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".
The improbable truth appears to be that FLW would rather create
'short-formed sets' than plan effectively for refurbishment and ongoing maintenance needs of carriages.
Improbable, I know, but then so is getting home from work on time.
btw I love the term 'short-formed sets' and will use that from now on whenever anyone asks why we are standing for and hour or two.
I'm sure FGW can cancel the train for you next time?
when there are no more compatable carriages left in the uk which are avalible for FGW to use, its pretty difficult to plan effectively for refurbishment,have you not seen the MML set about,these are extra carriages prehaps you would like the fitters to refurbish the carriages on the move so you can all line up in the buffet and take the seats just as soon as they are fitted.
You lot really should get a life at times better still why not take up train spotting
Anon,
I understand when the unexpected happens but refurbishment of carriages must be on ongoing part of the business. I would assume that there are always a certain percentage of carriages that are out for repair or refurbishment at any time.
From my perspective it is merely indicative of a poorly run business when a known event can't be planned for and ends up impacting customers - or as you like to call us - "you lot".
Ppehaps you lot might have been a bit harsh ol mate But you need to realise and look at the bigger picture some what before writing some of the rubbish which is posted on here, i know some of it is somewhat humorous but prehaps the effort that goes into this blog could be better spent as those good people in the Melksham area are trying to do in to getting a much better service.
You know as well as i do the Dft are still the puppet master.
and as for carriages there were 200 spare last winter ex virgin mk3s and it was mooted at the time by either the Dft /Roscos to either sell them abroad or scrap them as they were no longer of any use and guess what they have ALL now been snapped up for further use by the Tocs and that includes fgw,GrandCentral are converting west coast coaches back to hst ,as i have said before fgw are using mml coaches. i dont know what the exact number of coaches fgw have and what they require to run the service but what i do know is that more than coach is being refreshed at once and that maintainence and periodical exams to keep the coaches safe to ride in still need to be completed at the specific intervals.
my point is There are NO MORE VEHICLES TO HAVE and this im afraid is a result of total underfunding in the Rail Industry by sucessive governments over the past 30 yrs.
Incidentally try reading the beeching report of the 1960s its avalible on line. we all know Beeching suggested closing lots of lines but i bet a lot of people dont realise he also said invest money in others..and guess what the govt closed the lines and didnt spend the money
and before anyone says iam not an fgw manager in any shape or form just a fare paying passenger like should i sat it you lot.
sure i have been held up fustrated at times but difference is i try and understand the full facts before sounding off
here here
fuck u dick head defending fgw do u work for them? sum1 mentioned that they should plan for refurbishment by maybe using spare carriages? dont tell me they dont have them cos u can see the trains at old oak common. or... why not borrow from sum1 else?????? and wasn't the refurbishing meant to be completed months ago anyway stupid twats sticking up for a train company that doesn't know jack.
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