That pregnant pause

Giving up my seat is always something I do reluctantly - particularly when I've only just got on the train and I'm facing a good hour or more standing wedged in a noisy vestibule. These days I've grown hardened to overcrowded trains so it has to be someone pretty special to make me want to stand up and say those magic words: "Here, have my seat."

Pregnant women are always a tricky group. I remember the aggro my wife went through when pregnant commuting in and out of London when we lived there so I always feel sympathetic towards any woman forced to stand who's clearly up the Hilary Duff. But on the flip side, part of me thinks: if I can just avoid making eye contact with them, maybe someone else will give up their seat...maybe someone else will do the gentlemanly thing. No chance of that today, though.

Caught the 9.25am Chippenham-Paddington, the first cheapo service of the day. The platform at Chippenham was packed with families wanting to take a leisurely rail trip up to London with the kids - more fool them! Don't they know what it's like on First Great Western? - but when we all clambered aboard, it emerged pretty quickly in the chaotic melee that FGW had pulled its increasingly regular trick of failing to put out the seat reservations. The poor old families with their two or three little kids found their seats filled and grumpy commuter types unwilling to move.

Mental note: never take the kids on the train unless you really REALLY have to. It's never fun and it's never easy. Whatever FGW's summery advertising campaign says about jolly trips around the country, it's going to be like a cattle truck to Belsen. You have been warned.

Anyway, I managed to find a seat and settled down with the old laptop to do a spot of work when, on the periphery of my vision, I spotted the pregnant woman waddling towards me hunting for a seat.

But not just any pregnant women - she was super pregnant woman. In fact, it would have been harder to design a women better able to tug at the heart strings of a hardened First Great Western commuter. Not only was she pregnant but...she was holding a small baby in one arm and...wait for it...her other arm was just a stump! Yep, she seemed to have lost one arm from the elbow down and was desperately cradling a kid in the other.

Lord oh lordie, how could I refuse?

"Have my seat," I said magnanimously, then retreated to the vestibule to complete my journey in a petulant silence. Yep, that's about as pregnant as it gets...apart from actually having the baby in the carriage.

PS I used to work with a woman who made a point of standing on the London Underground and sticking her stomach out so that she looked pregnant in order to get a seat.

I quote the words of Jimmy Carr on the subject: "I'd rather see a pregnant woman standing up than a fat woman sitting down crying."

Trapped in the reservation limbo

Following power car problems yesterday, had a reasonable trip up this morning marred only by one issue that seems to be occuring rather a lot recently: the failure to print off the seat-back reservations.

My big grievance with this is that it leaves passengers in a bit of a limbo having no idea what to do. And it's not helped by the fact that I've never heard a train manager clarify the situation. Let me give you an example.

Today's train manager, Steve, delivered a very lengthy announcement at each stop, which was full of apologies but did nothing to help passengers. He said - and I'm using his words as closely as I can remember them - that passengers with seats should be 'accommodating' if approached by a fellow passenger with a reservation for that seat; and that passengers with reservation should be 'mindful' that the person sitting in their allocated seat wasn't aware that it was reserved.

That's all fine, but the question is...WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN? Have I got a reservation or not? If I'm sitting down and some guy comes up waving a reservation at me, can I tell him to take a running jump or not?

Why, oh why don't train managers cut to the chase and simply tell us whether the reservations are valid or not? That's what everybody wants to know.

Apologising for the lack of them is fine, but it doesn't provide the specific bit of information every passenger is waiting for.

In my two and a half years of daily commuting, I've been on lots of trains on which the reservations have not been placed, and heard lots of train manager announcements - but none of them every say 'Yes, the reservations are still valid' or 'No, they're not'. Instead it's left to passengers to somehow muddle through, having to make up the rules as they go. Asking us to be 'mindful' and 'accommodating' sounds lovely but just creates utter confusion. On the flip side, it means that the train manager doesn't really have to deal with the issue - unless a couple of customers come to fisticuffs.

So train managers, please, if there are no reservations on the seats, can you make it clear whether reservations are valid or not. That would save us all a lot of aggro and, frankly, make the journey more enjoyable.

PS I was also fascinated by Steve's request this morning for all rail personnel with passes to give up their seats because of overcrowding - which he reminded them was a privilege, not a right - but this didn't apply to retired personnel or their dependents, who could keep their seats. Nice. Didn't make a jot of difference, though. No one gave up their seats to any fare paying passengers as usual. Que sera sera.

Exclusive peak at FGW remake of The Railway Children

Word reaches me that, in an attempt to improve its image and public profile, First Great Western is to back a remake of the classic 1970 film The Railway Children based on Edith Nesbit’s novel of the same name. (Ooo, that Jenny Agutter!)

Anyway, having trawled the darker reaches of the internet and been in touch with a number of sources in Hollywood, I’ve been able to snatch a glimpse of the FGW version of the script. While I’m unable to reproduce it in full for copyright reasons, I can now present to you my exclusive summary. So here goes…

The Railway Children, as retold by First Great Western

Set in contemporary England, a middle class family from London with three children – Roberta, Phyllis and Mix Master P-J of the Streatham Massive, their knife toting brother – must relocate to the bleak Yorkshire Moors following the imprisonment of their father for emailing Gardeners’ Question Time about bulk purchases of fertilizer.

Once in their new home, they discover the local train station, where they start hanging about a bit. It is an unmanned station with just a speaking ticket machine (voiced by Bernard Cribbins) which says dryly amusing Yorkshire homilies like “Will you be paying by card or cash?” By day the station is a dumping ground for overweight people and community care types; by night it is home to gangs of drunks and hoodies. P-J falls in with the wrong crowd, attempts to steal a urinal to burn on the fire at home, is arrested and given an ASBO banning him from appearing in the rest of the film.

Several whizzo adventures then befall Roberta and Phyllis. They save a boy on a school paper chase who gets stuck in a tunnel and is the cause of all peak hour services being delayed for two hours. Ye Olde Yorkshire Train Operating Company then issues a statement blaming Network Rail for late running. (Geddit?)

They witness a freak landslide which sends a tree and some earth crashing onto the track. Although the two girls are able to stop the approaching train by pretending to be school children trespassing on the rails, the track is shut for a month and commuters have to travel via donkey.

Next, a sickly foreign gentleman is found collapsed at the station. Roberta and Phyllis phone the border police and have him arrested as an illegal immigrant.

Finally, the emotional climax of the film: the Old Gentleman tells Roberta to be at the station to meet a particular train. What Roberta does not realize is that her father has been released from jail due to overcrowding and is travelling to join his family. However, things go awry. Unable to afford the extortionate fare, he travels without a ticket and is thrown off the train by revenue protection officers. When he is finally able to raise the necessary money by selling a kidney, the train fails to stop at his station due to signaling problems and strands him in Bristol where he dies after eating a mini Melton Mowbray pork pie from the station café.

In her anguish at the news of his death, Roberta loses the will to live so becomes a customer host on First Great Western. She ends the film sobbing over the tannoy as she announces happy hour prices in the buffet, then takes her own life by choking on a breakfast bap. The End.

Wow! Sounds like a classic to me, boys and girls. Popcorn anyone?

A quick update

Here's a handy aide memoire on a number of issues I'm keeping track of at the moment:

1. It's mid-July and still no new car park ticket machines at Chippenham, a full seven months after the signs went up to say we were going to have them. What on earth are they doing?

2. Still no picture of melodiously named Sheridan Flavin, FGW's HR director, on the Meet our Executive Team page of the FGW website. Why? I suspect she's a bit of a looker and am keen to find out. Does anyone have a pic of Ms Flavin or can you direct me towards one? First Great Western commuters have a right to know.

On that note, I'm considering holding a 'Who is the most unfortunate-looking member of the First Great Western executive team?' poll. My nomination will depend on finding out whether James Burt's picture has been squeezed or he really looks like that!(See picture above.)

3. The first class upgrade offer ended 6 July but I barely noticed this time, so stringent had the conditions been. I think I only managed to get an upgrade about three times. Hardly worth bothering with.

Pick of the week

Nose pickers – essentially there are two types: the self-conscious and the unselfconscious. I’m one of the former – just a crafty poke about now and then when I think no one’s looking. But this morning I encountered one of the unselfconscious types, and, boy, was he ever brazen about it, apparently totally uncaring about the eyes of his fellow commuters..

It was on the Hammersmith and City line tube. Ginger, 20-something, jeans and an odd checked jacket. He was standing just inside the doorway leaning against the partition – prime spot, that – and was reading Metro while burying his finger in his nostril up to his second knuckle. The woman opposite could barely believe what she was seeing. So distracted was she by this no holds barred performance of bogey ferreting that she was unable to read her hardback novel. Instead, she stared, horrified, at the picker and then looked around the carriage, trying to spot if anyone else was as awe-struck as she was by the blatant display of social ineptitude.

But then things got worse. Having pursued some ripe booger with the tip of his index finger for a while, he hooked it and withdrew it in order to examine it, holding it up proudly for the commuters to see. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he slipped his finger between his lips and begun to chomp on this delightful piece of low hanging nasal fruit.

The woman opposite him almost gagged and had to turn away. He munched on, oblivious to all and sundry…and then went looking for dessert.

Promises, promises...

Nothing worse than a broken promise, is there - particularly when it's First Great Western doing the breaking. You may recall that last week I had the horrendous three hour trip on the train that got stuck behind the broken down one. (If you missed this exciting installment, you can catch up on it here.) But anyway, this was the night the train manager was forced to do the Walk of Shame (First Great Western Walk of Shame is now © copyright Economy Klaus 2008) and promised all and sundry compensation.

All of us? Surely not, I thought. So I had sought clarification: "What about if you're a season ticket holder?"

Train manager: "Yes, if you contact First Great Western customer services."...which I duly did, having spoken to someone on the phone who'd told me that a goodwill payment would be considered.

Considered and rejected, that is. Extract from letter as follows:

"Blah blah blah...We do our best to make sure our customers travel safely and arrive on time...blah blah blah...we know that reliability has not been good enough...we have changed the way we plan maintenance and repairs to our fleetl...(EK thinks: Huh? What has any of this to do with my claim?) ...blah blah blah...as a season ticket holder you are entitled to a discount when you renew your ticket...blah blah blah...Apart from the circumstances I have explained...(EK thinks: Ah ha! Now we're getting to the point midway down the second page)...THERE IS NO FURTHER DISCOUNT OR COMPENSATION FOR INDIVIDUAL DELAYS, AND THIS APPLIES TO THE SPECIFIC DELAY ON 1 JULY.

So no wonga, then, for being stuck for three hours on a train while my childminder virtually has one of her own!

All of which begs the question: why did the train manager tell us we'd get compensation? Was it an attempt to quell the angry passengers by telling us we'd be able to make our claim? Or was it a genuine mistake? Or...was the train manager right and are First Great Western customer services wrong? Who knows?

It some respects the answer doesn't really matter because, whichever way you look at it, the service is poor. I certainly hope the train manager wasn't telling a deliberate porky: he's a chap I've seen many times before and he strikes me as earnest and morally upstanding, if not a bumper laugh riot in the morning.

Also, am I right in thinking that FGW customer services must have most of their reply letters in template form so they can just cut and paste in a load of standard paragraphs in an attempt to bore the complainant into a coma before they reach the point at which they actually answer the specific query. (If they are using the template approach, can I suggest just two templates: one bearing the word 'Yes' in 72 point font and the other bearing the word 'No'. That would cut to the chase.)

Anyway, as far as this compensation claim is concerned, it's FGW-1, EK-0. But I live to fight again. (I am losing the will to live because of First Great Western ® is now a registered trademark of Economy Klaus 2008.)

Get yer socks off!

It wasn't until the train eased out of Didcot heading west that I spotted him. Opposite side of the aisle, facing me, about four rows away. There he was, late 40s; grey hair; rangy build; cheap suit. But it was none of those things which drew my attention. No, it was the fact that his black shoes had been nudged neatly under the seat in front of him and his big feet, clad in nothing but a pair of bobbly black socks were stretched into the aisle, toes flexing rhythmically. Yuk.

Warm, sweaty feet, curling and uncurling like smug cats. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants to be in close proximity to a middle-aged businessman who insists on getting his plates of meat out and displaying them to all and sundry.

I contemplated calling the train manager.

The woman sitting next to the man looked pretty horrified. I could see her sneaking the odd glance as he moved his legs around, the black socks looming closer to her. She decided she wanted to go to the toilet. I couldn't help but wonder if this was a ruse to escape the sock man - to get away from these smelly appendages and sit somewhere else. She said excuse me, stood up; he did likewise. As she edged past him, I'm sure I saw her twist away in revulsion as the socky feet momentarily came too close for comfort. After a few minutes she returned to her seat, smiled nervously and again edged past the nylon horrors.

Now I don't know about you, but after a long day at work my feet stink - so Lord only knows what this guy's feet smelt like. Probably a combination of warm cheese, rancid fish and BO. I recoiled at the thought.

All I can say is that this type of thing should not be allowed on packed train. Getting yer stinky feet out in the middle of a crowed carriage is strictly a no-no; it's something that should only be done in the privacy of one's own home - or the toilet at a push. I don't want to have to breathe in someone else's foot odour. If there's no smoking allowed, then there should be no feet. I'm all for a train manager announcement on the subject:

"Smoking is not permitted on any part of this train. This includes the toilets and the vestibules. Shoes should be worn all times and any display of sweaty feet will result in an on-the-spot fine and removal from the train at the next station." Quite right too.

So gentlemen, keep your shoes on, please. Unless you're sitting in first class, in which case you probably get someone to massage them and give you a quick manicure. Maybe even darn the holes. TTFN.

In which I experience déjà vu and the train manager does the Walk of Shame

Well, hold the front page! It all went hideously wrong tonight.

Jumped on the 6pm Paddington-Chippenham only to get as far as somewhere just outside Hayes and Harlington a few miles away when we ground to a halt and stayed there for 25 minutes. The PA in our carriage wasn’t working so when the train manager finally came on the blower, 70 people strained forward out of their seats and heard something like this:

Train manager: “Squeakety-squeak squeakety-squeak.”

Passengers: “Huh?”

Train manager: “Squeakety-squeak squeakety-squeaker-squeak.”

Passenger with good hearing: “We’re stuck between a broken-down train and another one.”

Passengers: “Ah…oh dear.” Or words to that effect.

And there we sat for 50 minutes, watching other trains speeding up and down the lines while we baked in the warm evening sunshine and waited for news.

The guy in front of me – wearing a short-sleeved shirt, usually a sign of social ineptitude – kept calling First Great Western’s customer services department and demanding to be put through to various senior managers, all of whom had long ago departed for home.

Finally another tannoy message.

Train manager: “Squeakety-squeak squeakety-squeak.”

Passengers: “Huh?”

Train manager: “Squeakety-squeak squeakety-squeaker-squeak.”

Passenger with good hearing: “We’re going back to Paddington to change tracks and try again.”

Passengers: “Ah…well who’d have thought it.” Or words to that effect.

So we went all the way back to Paddington, sat there for 15 mins with the doors locked, then left on precisely the same track we’d just come in on. It was 7.20pm, a whole hour and 20 minutes since our odyssey-like journey home had begun.

As we crawled through West London, trapped in a huge queue of trains, passenger mood soured rapidly. It was déjà vu all over again – or something like that. “Oo looky,” I shouted to lighten the mood, “There’s Acton Town for the third time tonight!”

The train manager braved the surly mob and did the Walk of Shame – that’s the walk the train manager does up the aisle when things have gone horribly wrong and he or she has to apologise to passengers in person and explain the compensation arrangements. It wasn’t pretty.

“I’ve had enough apologies from First Great Western – they’ve devalued apologies. I want service!”

“So how much compensation do we get on a season ticket. Why don’t you know?”

“How long is the journey going to go on for? What’s our ETA?”

Meanwhile things had turned from bad to worse on the seat-neighbour front. The guy who’d sat next to me, initially a benign elderly foreign man with an interesting knowledge of bridge engineering, was rapidly turning into a cross between Slobodan Milošević and Martin Boorman, treating me to his rabid views on ethnic minorities, political correctness and er…bridge engineering – or at least a peculiarly Nazi school of bridge engineering, I think.

So with Adolf Eichmann in full rant on my right, the man with the short-sleeved shirt in front upped the ante and accused the train manager of gross negligence for failing to have his PA working properly. Mr Short-sleeves suggested, in no uncertain terms, that the train manager should go on a training course to improve his skills.

That did it. The train manager drew himself up to his full and not inconsiderable height and visibly bristled with rage. “Sir, there are some things you can say to me, such as about the PA, which I accept…but that was offensive.”

Heated words followed. To be frank, my sympathies were with the train manager, whom I thought was commendably brave to carry out the Walk of Shame. Sure, Mr Short-Sleeved Shirt had a point, but he went about making it all wrong and came across as frankly unpleasant.

Anyway, we crawled to Reading and then things improved: we went faster and I got a complimentary Coke, packet of nuts and some sort of unidentifiable Danish pastry. (Gosh, how easily I’m bought.) Finally made it back to Chippenham just before 9pm, almost three full hours after we’d set off. That’s cost me an extra £20 in childminding fees and robbed me of most of my evening. But, hey, that’s life on First Great Western. Rest assured I shall be contacting FGW's customer services first thing tomorrow for the compensation we’ve been promised. Will keep you posted.