42067 18:37 Tuesday 26th August

42067

I am too too too tired to write anything about today’s journey in 42067, which was Carriage B on the 18:37 to Frome, other than everything was strangely not just on time, but early (yes, really) and to note that it’ll soon be time to harvest the rhubarb at Reading Station.

42383 18:00 Thursday 21st August

42383

I tried to bag myself a couple of Carriage Bs tonight, got one and got one duplicate.

The one I got was 42383 which was Carriage B on the 18:00 Bristol Service.

And now for an extra long, long weekend.

42315, 42504 & 42118 – 18:37, 18:00 & 18:37 Tuesday 19th July & Wednesday 20th July

42315

42504 

42118

Nothing exciting happened yesterday, well certainly nothing to compare to Monday’s excitement, other than when the train (in a duplicate carriage) that took me to Reading set off the Train Manager’s announcement informed people that it is illegal to sell things on the train. Very strange seeing as I’ve never heard that particular warning before and coming just one day after yesterday’s on-board episode of Only Fools and Horses.

Oh, I sat in 42315, a Carriage D, on the 18:37 to Frome to get me home.

Today it was all aboard a duplicate Carriage A for this morning’s adventure into town which ended just outside Theale when FGW asked me to wait for the next two hours in a field. Apparently a freight train had broken down just outside Reading and had blocked all lines in and out of the Station.

OK, not really FGW’s fault but again we were victims of the inability of the railways to take any sort of action when something untoward happens and get us moving again. Instead we had to wait for something to shunt something else out of the way and with just the taste of Jess’s stroppy twitter reply and a free black coffee in my mouth we were back on the way before you could say 120 minutes of pain in the back side.

This evening it was aboard a very boring 18:00 Bristol Service in Carriage E, 42504 and 42118, a Carriage B on the 18:37 to Frome. This time it was a mere 12 minutes late. So 10 times better at being late than this morning.

See! And you lot think that things never improve!

Free!

42066 18:37 Monday 18th August

42066

The start of a new week and it was an exciting old journey home after boarding the 18:03 to Penzance and taking a seat in 42252, which although turned out to be a duplicate carriage, didn’t stop the fun and games kicking off when a certain cheeky chappy skipped up the aisle with a jaunty step, merrily waving a long stick in the air with a mobile phone glued to the end.

Turns out that the “stick” is a “selfiepod” and going from what the chap was saying, I could purchase one directly from him for the princely sum of £10.

Actually I could probably do with one as I’d only just taken this snap of a fellow passenger who thinks it acceptable to hog seats with runner beans. Just imagine the shot I could have got if I’d got a stick with a camera on the end?

I have to say he was more “silver spoon” than “barrow boy” but not used to having my train journey turned into a mobile version of Petticoat Lane I tweeted @FGW to see whether this was an bonus extra service to try to regain some of their customer’s trust. (This is an ongoing subject at the moment.)

Grant, ever one to crush a young entrepreneur’s dream, was soon on the case, but his tweet gave me the impression that the man with the stick had just been catapulted through the buffet car window as we passed through Taplow.

Feeling like a complete cad I promised @selfiepod a mention on tonight’s blog and then went beyond the call of duty by trying to peddle their wares to Grant himself. Noting Grant’s reluctant to appear in any photographic format (has he got an extra eye or something?) I instead connected “Mr Pod” with the ever delectable queen of purple, Rebecca the Ambassador from Cardiff - @fgw_cdfcentral and no sooner had you said Cilla Black it looks like we should all start ordering our top hats and buttonholes.

Mind you, any previous guilty feelings I had were soon dispelled when I reached home and found that “Mr Selfie” was not only claiming he was simply explaining the selfiepod system to interested parties (how come I know it’s a tenner then Mr Dragon’s Den?) but had captured himself with FGW’s Jess!

Now unless there’s a Train Manager going by the same name, the last time I saw the “proper” Jess she looked like this – how she’s let herself go!

(She's the one on the right BTW, not the one in the middle)

Oh, my journey was completed on 42066, a Carriage C on the 18:37 to Frome.

44049 18:00 Friday 15th August

44049

I celebrated the journey home with a trip in 44049 which was Carriage A on the 18:00 service to Bristol.

And what was I celebrating?

Why, the wonderful “silver medal” that First Great Western had won by being the 2nd least trusted Rail Operator in the country.

Keep up the good work lads and lasses and next year the top spot might be yours!

60531 - 09:26 Wednesday 13th August

60531

Wait a minute BGC! 60531 isn’t a First Great Western Carriage number!

No it isn’t, you’re right, but after a couple of dull and deadly boring updates, I can promise you that today’s missive is as wild and exciting as your most wild and exciting dreams that feature someone wild and exciting.

And that’s mainly due to the fact that not only was I taking the normal FGW work-horse into Paddington, but I was then skirting around the Circle Line to St Pancras and taking an East Midlands train to Nottingham.

Well I thought it was going to be Nottingham, turned out it was actually East Midlands Parkway but that wasn’t before I’d cast my mind back to the adverts of the 70’s and came up with the classic line from the Tunes cough sweets man.

Classic

FGW’s Grant very graciously wished me a good journey which led to a chain of tweets which I can only describe as disturbing in the levels of flirtatiousness that he then took them too. I mean, I don’t even know what this bloke looks like and there’s no way I’m travelling up to the East Midlands with some kind of minger.

Flirty!

Anyway the journey was completed, on time and with a seat (inside 60531 which was a Carriage B), which is all that most commuters really want anyway, so all I can say in comparison between East Midlands and First Great Western is that the toilets on the East Midlands trains are roomier, definitely space to swing a cat and give everything a good old shake, but the coat hooks are better on FGW. They do have them on East Midlands but they’re right in front of the windows, which mean you may miss seeing the picturesque dumps of Leicester and Loughborough whizz by.

My East Midlands train.

Toilet humour @EMTrains style - East Midlands Parkway Station 

The journey home was made aboard 42293 which was also a Carriage B, (and a bloody duplicate) but this time on the 18:30 to Western Super Mare. Alighting in Reading I noted with interest that the air conditioning issue which seems to affect all trains at the moment was also affecting the waiting room on Platform 7.

Chilly

Ollie didn’t quite seem to get the joke but luckily Leo was on hand to pull things back to the subject of the Carriage Capture and it looks like with now a whopping 97 carriages in the bag, my photo of Grant should be guaranteed!

Oh, final note. If I saw you the full photo of the chap in the sleeping bag you’ll see that I’ve been well and truly captured myself by the young lady in the foreground. Any more lapses like this and soon my cover will be blown and there’ll be a purple waistcoated lynch mob waiting at Thatcham Station one morning.

Busted!

42321 18:00 Monday 11th August

42321

Look I’m sorry, it’s not my fault nothing is happening at the moment.

The most exciting thing tonight was me sitting next to a sweaty cyclist who very politely let me out at Reading, before I joined the Frome Service and sat in Carriage B, 42321.

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll start a fight, or sit in the luggage rack, or maybe let off a big fart…….or maybe not.

44064 & 42222 – 06:57 & 21:02 Friday 8th August

44064 & 42222

I’m afraid this is another miniscule jotting just to log that;

I was in Carriage 44064, a Carriage A on the morning train to work.

I was in Carriage 42222, a Carriage E on the evening train back home.

Enjoy your weekend by avoiding all the cyclists on the train going to something about bikes in London.

No-one cares guys, you’re not saving the planet so stop being so high and bloody mighty and delaying the trains. Oh, yeah, and those helmets…………..<snigger>

42076 - 18:03 Wednesday 6th August

42076

Today I went on the 18:03 Penzance Service and sat in 42076, which is a Carriage D.

Too tired to write any more.

Goodnight.

44042 & 42217 – 18:05 & 17:49 Monday 4th August & Tuesday 5th August

44042 & 42217

So, did you think I’d packed my bags and gone away? Well no such luck suckers! Even the great BGC is allowed a couple of days off from looking like a spotter-nerd and ignoring the numbers printed on the side of FGW’s rolling stock.

But it’s back in the saddle today with a double-bagger of last night’s 17:05 to Frome where I sat in a reverse formation Carriage A called 44042 – more of that later - and tonight where the 17:49 Worcester Service brought me as far as Reading inside 42217, which was a Carriage C.

So what was the news from the 4402 – Well the eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that of course any Carriage A should be a “quiet carriage” and here we might as well stop and consider the word “should”.
I think I’ve mentioned before that in the mornings I only limit myself to Carriage A’s because I simply can not face the noise levels of the other carriages first thing in the mornings and at this time of day, by and large, Carriage A does live up to its quiet billing and is an oasis of rustling newspapers and the gentle clearing of throats.

Later in the day though it can become a real case of hit and miss, sometimes the carriage remains fairly quiet but at others it can be party central and you’d have a quieter journey sticking your head out the window at full speed – don’t try that at home kids.

But what grinds my gears is that the majority of people go in the quiet carriage to deliberately be exactly that, quiet, but there is a certain set of people who simply don’t believe this sentiment applies to them. It’s not the silent carriage so of course there is always a certain level of noise and I would never shush and tut at someone who is making a low level of noise and I even give the phone call makers the benefit of the doubt just to see if it’s just a very quick “I’m on the train” call.

But last night’s offender was in full chat mode with not one but two calls that spanned right through the Train Manager’s welcoming speech and with no sense of irony this blathering pest chatted right through the request to keep noise down in Carriage A.

I gave her 5 minutes and then politely (yes, honestly, it was polite) said “excuse me, it is the quiet carriage.”

The shrew faced harridan then said to her phone callee “I’m going to have to go, I’m being shouted at.” She hung up and then said “You are so rude!”

Not wishing to prolong any sort of disruption for the benefit of the others I didn’t react but just in case there’s a wild chance the prune mouthed witch-woman is reading……you think that was rude? Well, honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet………you mardy arsed bitch-cow-bag, I fucking hate you. And just so we’re crystal clear, your husband fucking hates you cause you make him use a penis beaker and still deny him anal after 10 years of a soulless, empty marriage; your kids hate you cause you’re a nagging siren who cares more about tidy bedrooms than pillow fights and fun; the whole fucking carriage fucking hates you cause you hog the armrests and you have the BO of a camel in heat; oh, and I fucking hate you as well. Bitch.