42077 – 18:00 Tuesday 21st April

42077

Fear not faint hearts and fair maidens, I haven’t deserted you but instead am back in the saddle after a couple of weeks dodging the annual FGW Easter debacle by taking my handsome face on a tour around Europe.

Monday saw me back riding the iron horse and would you believe it, it also marked a year to the day since I started this stupid blog. And just so I can confirm my thoughts down in writing, nothing, that’s absolutely nothing has improved about my commute in that year. Nothing.

Unfortunately for the capture, both Monday and today saw just duplicates, but Tuesday saw a new carriage falling victim in the shape of 42077, a Carriage F on the 18:00 to Bristol.

Here’s to the next year!

Oh, P.S. Nothing has improved.

42287 – 18:37 Thursday 26th March

42287

Sorry I’ve been away for so long. To make up for it, here’s a selfie aboard 42287, the Carriage C on tonight’s 18:37 to Frome……

….which, amazingly…..and I’m not making this up…….

…..was on time tonight!

And the Train Manager wasn’t a scruffy slob.

42332 – 18:03 Monday 16th February

42332

OK, let’s be totally and utterly and doubly accurate tonight.

My journey from Paddington to Reading was aboard the 17:49 to Worcester Shrub Hill and I sat in Carriage D which was numbered as 42332.

We arrived at Reading at 18:31 which made it 11 minutes late.

I then travelled from Reading to home in 42382 which is a duplicate carriage. I captured this one for the blog on the 30th of June 2014. 

We arrived home at 19:09 which made it 13 minutes late.

Both delays were the fault of First Great Western.

See, all the information you could possibly ever want or need.

42257 & 42008 – 17:49 & 18:37 Tuesday 20th January

42257 & 42008

Well hello everybody. Firstly I’d like to apologise for the delay in tonight’s blog entry. The blog was updated about 8 minutes later than normal and I do heartily apologies for any inconvenience this will cause to you. Hopefully I will be able to make up some of this time by droning on and on and on and on and on and generally either sending you to sleep or making you dash your head against the window so hard you forget your name and where you were travelling to.

I am delighted to be able to announce that alongside the fully stocked Extress Café, which is serving a range of hot and cold snacks, hot and cold drinks, hot and cold porridge and hot and cold levels of service, tonight’s blog is brought to you by Train Manager supreme, Kimberly.

Please take great care when taking your seat about Carriage B on the 17:49 to Worcester Shrub Hill by sitting down gently in Carriage 42257 and making sure that you are not going to land on an upturned Brompton bike.

On disembarkation to change trains to the 18:37 to Frome please take great care when opening the doors to Carriage C, which you’ll find between Carriage B and Carriage D and tonight, is labelled with the number 42008. In fact, opening the doors may well take too long and delay the train even longer than the 10 minutes it takes the miserable-as-sin platform staff to dispatch it, so instead can I encourage all passengers to enter and leave the carriage by using the windows which I have helpfully opened beforehand. You assistance in this matter will be most appreciated.

The next stop in five and a half hours will be some God forsaken place in the east of England but I will tell you now that only the front five carriages will be platformed there. So just in case you’re too damn stupid to work out that the first five letters of the alphabet are A, B, C, D & E, only carriages A, B, C, D & E will be platformed there. In the meantime I will ask you all to sit back, relax and let me repeat this and other meaningless drivel instead of walking up and down and checking tickets.

44003 (again) & 42310 – 18:03 & 18:37 Wednesday 7th January

44003 (again) & 42310

I thought I was definitely on for a new capture when I spotted 44003 making up Carriage A on the 18:03 Penzance service as its door stickers were a different colour than the normal gaudy pink and blue. But it seems I did travel on this one already back in May last year.

But 42310 was a new Carriage C on the 18:37 to Frome at least.

And if that isn’t enough, here’s a picture of 150002 which is standing in for 150001 at the moment.

150002

It’s a long story………..but hilarious!

No, seriously, it is.

42364 – 17:45 Tuesday 16th December

42364

Tonight I travelled in 42364 on the 18:37 to Frome. It was a Carriage C.

Here endeth today’s installment of War & Peace.

42138 – 17:49 Monday 27th November

42138

After last night’s huge saga tonight’s episode is much shorter but no any less interesting.

I caught the 18:05 Frome service at Reading tonight (5 minutes late as usual) and entered Carriage D only to be greeted by a Carriage C layout (you know the one, the one with the disabled toilet which is always out of order.)

So now of course I don’t know whether to log this as a Carriage D (to match the outside stickers) or a Carriage C (to match the inside stickers.)

I mean how am I going to get to sleep tonight?