T'was the last post before Christmas - the serious one

Don't really want to sign off before Xmas with anything too serious, so this is the heavy post, then I'm going to leave you on a rather more festive and fun note in the next post.

So...what's been happening? Well, all the car park machines were out of order in Chippenham north car park yesterday so that when I arrived a little before 7am, there was an army of motorists wandering like zombies around the car park going from machine to machine in an exercise in futility. Thank God the Ringo phone service worked.

(Note to First Great Western management: why don't you get Ringo Starr to voice the Ringo phone service? How fantastic would that be?)

The we had the mass groan on the platform when it was announced that hot drinks were off the menu on the 6.55am due to a technical fault with the boiler, though this made me wonder whether it's possible to have any other kind of fault with the boiler other than a technical one.

Finally, my serious point. I've been writing this blog since the summer (Ah! Remember those balmy warm days?) and it's been pointed out on many occasions that much of what I moan about is actually the fault of Network Rail. It's also a generally acknowledged nugget of wisdom that it's not good for First Great Western to moan publicly about Network Rail. I've always thought this was nonsense and now, to prove me right, here's Virgin Train's managing director Chris Gibb quoted on page 31 of today's edition of The Times talking about an engineering overrun:

"We simply cannot have NR (Network rail) bullying rail operators in this way just because their engineering planning processes are in a mess."

Good for you, Mr Gibb. You go, girl!

At least Virgin Trains has got the gumption and the PR skills to have a crack at Network Rail on the record. Come on, First Great Western management team, when are you to going to show a bit of backbone and go public with your displeasure? Because until you do, people like me will keep having a pop at you in blogs like these. If you want to stat getting more customers to understand the problems you face, communicate with us.

Enough heavy stuff. Happy Christmas to one and all - now please visit T'was the last post before Christmas - the funny one for a good laugh.