40752 & 41137
And it wouldn’t just be a case of “travelling away”, oh no, I would be spirited away in a sense of luxury and splendour not seen since Hercule Poirot decided to take a wee cruise up the Nile, as I was going to travel First Great Western 1st class and I could only just hope that there would be a suitably attired porter to carry all my hat boxes to the guard’s van.
The “away” bit of the travel was actually a bit of an anti-climax as son of BGC and I left aboard Carriage K (40752) on the 14:34 Reading to Penzance service and only had to endure the sight of a portly gentleman retrieving his bags from the overhead lockers and displaying a yard of hairy mid-drift.
The saving grace of this rather mundane excursion was the appearance of the FGW Trolley which was ably pushed around by a chap called Reuban and a lady, whose name I missed on account of other attributes of hers taking my attention every time they went past. Reuban also did a good line in one-liners, which were unfortunately wasted on the geriatric audience he had to deal with:
“A weak tea please.”
“Is that this week or next week?”
“Umm, no, just one with lots of milk please.”
Reuban, me old mate, I would, if at all possible, give up the day job.”
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The return leg began oh so well with a more-or-less on time departure from Liskeard station, which features for those that have a fetish for such things, a lovely old signal box and a bay platform for the branch line to Looe which is at right angles to the main line.
A second bonus was quickly discovered when our reserved seats were in Carriage L, 41127, which is one of the brand spanking new refurbished 1st Class cars that have recently been spruced up thanks to a Department of Transport investment. Good to see the big wigs at the top have the needs of the common passenger at heart………
Anyway, to be fair, it’s a bit more of a spruce up as it features a pretty good attempt at a 1930’s make-over with classic Great Western Railway logos and a funky pattern carpet. They’ve even put a big “1st” on the door so that bell-boys know where to drop off your portmanteau and trunks.
Funky & Numbers
It was all going well, apart from the chap opposite who had noises turned on on his laptop so every time he opened a file or deleted something we were all treated to a “boing!” or a “twang!”, but the wheels began to really fall off the wagon as we continued our journey and crawled into Taunton.
News was filtering through that all lines into Paddington were blocked and as such with no trains being able to leave the capital, services were being cancelled all over the shop. Our already full train was then diverted to Bristol and would make further stops at Bath, Chippenham, Swindon and Didcot in order to mop up some of the stranded passengers trying to get to London.
By this time 1st Class had already been declassified meaning the smart Great Western Railway logos were now all blocked by rucksacks, suitcases and people. The Train Manager kept up a good level of communications but all of his promises to “now I’ve had a word with control and we won’t be picking up any more people in xxxx” were all rather hopeful as on each and every stop we seemed to cram on a few dozen more.
Now lest anyone get the idea that I was disapproving of all these actions, I’m not. I would have gladly had a granny and a toddler sitting on my lap if it meant that a couple more folk could have got on their way, and I must say that after watching the night’s news and seeing the poor souls queuing for miles around Finsbury Park station my 2 hour delay into Reading is really quite small potatoes in comparison.
I’m not going to rabbit on anymore about the fiasco because it’s been dominating our news channels for the past to days, but I’ll leave you with one question. Why, when Network Rail Managing Director, Robin Gisby, appeared on the news to give us his snivelling excuses did the captions just read – “Robin Gisby – Network Rail”? Was he trying to pass himself as a little cog in this massive machine as if he was just the poor lamb sent to the slaughter of the press? I hope that some sort of parliamentary investigation awaits him and we get to see more of his frown be-lined visage sweating in the face of pointed questions. Oh, and just so you know, it would seem he clears close on a million quid a year for his work. Priceless. Worth every penny. Twat.
Oh....did you want to know the scores on the doors for the end of the year? Well from the total of 497 Carriages which Ollie told me about, I have travelled in (drum roll) 157 of them! So just the 340 to go.....roll on 2015!
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