Another bonus post – Introducing Leo

Unfortunately it was another duplicate carriage this morning so that meant another failure to capture a carriage for the Carriage Capture, which will obviously be just as much of a crushing disappointment for readers of this blog as it was for me.

But never fear because luckily Lovely Jess, perhaps sensing an impending disaster on the carriage front, had chosen today to send me the first of my Carriage Capture reward photographs. It’s obviously a duty for me to share it with the wider world and so I reproduce it here for everyone’s enjoyment. So ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, may I present to you, FGW’s finest (for now anyway) Mr Leo.

Get a load of this ladies....Grrrrrrr!

The obvious comment to make is that Leo has taken his name very literally by growing a superb mane of golden whiskers to surround his face with. This no doubt gives him super tweeting powers, but not enough tweeting power to tidy up his fast food drink cup from behind the laptop………Jess, you need a get a grip!

42264 – 17:06 Thursday 15th May

42264

After this morning’s excitement of the near encounter between myself and Dr @cr_rail this evening’s return journey was pedestrian at best.

Arriving early at Paddington saw me safety inside Carriage C on the 17:06 Bristol Temple Meads service but alas any chance of stretching out over a double seat was soon quashed by a full service and the woman who sat next to me and who obviously saw it as her mission to make sure I was under no impression I had any rights to any part of the armrest at all.

And of course, just to sprinkle some extra hot pepper on my already spicy seating arrangement she decided to keep her cloak on for the journey. Yes, on what must have been the hottest day of the year so far, this woman was feeling chilly enough to keep her flowing robes on……..thank the good lord that the air conditioning was working………for once.

44067 – 06:57 Thursday 15th May

44067

The same regular morning train is still throwing up new and unexplored Carriage A’s for the Carriage Capture project and 44067 just became the next victim of the BGC.

There was nothing to report and everything was going nice and very much to order until the unruly Reading lot got on at, well, at Reading. As the ugly hoards staggered their way up the aisle, one mardy bugger who was obviously not having the best of mornings was heard to mutter “Fuckin’ hell!” as it looked like all the seats would be taken before he would have a chance to park his backside in a free spot.

This in itself would be a small and forgettable occurrence but for the fact minutes after the event I spotted this tweet from one of the regular commuting tweeters who I follow, @cr_rail

This could only mean one thing and I’m sure you’ve already figured it quicker than me, that somewhere in this carriage was someone I had only previously known by avatar and moaning tweets.

Before you could say cheesy Hollywood rom-com you had Jess from FGW chipping in recreating her own version of Brief Encounter and getting all gushing about the fact we were in the same carriage!

Now what’s the problem with all of this I hear all you non-commuting readers ask? (Yeah, like there are any non-commuting readers………(Yeah, like there any readers at all!)) Well it’s a funny thing but the possibility of “train friends” isn’t necessarily something I’m comfortable with and I get the impression from other tweeting commuters that they feel the same. It’s a much often repeated cliché that the British travel on busses, trains and tubes and never utter a word to each other and it’s true, we don’t, but the reason this has become a staple topic of stand-up comedians everywhere is because we actually prefer it that way. We love our bubbles of silence and our little worlds of mental self-delusion and we’ll protect and defend them to the hilt.

Luckily it would see that Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss @cr_rail feels the same and we both rejected Jess’s suggestion to perform a synchronised wave so we could identify each other. And anyway, after all, it’s much more fun trying to work out who it might be secretly!

So…..is it young-beany-hat-over-the-eye-snooze-guy? Or ginger-kindle-fiend? Surely not Ms-stupid-look-at-me-cough who I had to sit next to yesterday? You’re not Mr “Not that one!” Williams are you?

44004 – 06:57 Monday 12th May

44004

Ummmm, not a lot to report today.

Got the train, read the Metro, fell asleep, got off the train, took a photo of the carriage, got stared at by the other passengers.

Well that’s another Carriage A, 44004 in the book.

See you tonight……..in the meantime enjoy this melancholic poem from @creativerach1

42096 – 17:15 Friday 9th May

42096

Early arrival at Paddington should have meant the opportunity to get a non-regular train, and it did, but unfortunately that didn’t mean I got a non-regular carriage as no sooner had to plonked myself down in a lovely spare double seat in Carriage B on the 17:15 Carmarthen Service than I realised I’d already been in this one before.

So with a slight huff and puff I gathered up my belongings and thought a quick scamper down into Carriage C would see me with a new berth and a new carriage. Alas FGW foiled my plans by ensuring all the seats were reserved seats in this carriage meaning my stumble down the carriages had to continue onward to Carriage D.

It was here I did manage to find a place aboard 42096 but not before I had to ask the window sitter to move their bag. In fact there seemed there was a disproportionate amount of seat-bag-hoggers in operation today. Now I’ve already had a rant at the aisle sitters but even worse than these wastes of skin are the seat-bag-hoggers who are quite despicable and possibly the lowest creation on this fair earth. Perhaps my tweet explaining all this wasn’t so pithy but you get the point.

The bright spot in this cloudy sky was spotting that the carriage number is also shown on the side of the air con unit in the carriage. Quite why this excited me as much as it did it probably an unhealthy sign but at least it’s another option when trying not too look too much like a sad spotter when taking the photos. (Emphasis on the “trying”.)

42333 – 18:37 Thursday 8th May

42333

This is getting to be far too much of a habit and is hampering the Carriage Capture no end. Jumped aboard the 17:49 again and innocently sat in Carriage B only to find out I was in this very same carriage only 2 days ago when it was masquerading as the 17:33 service.

So unfortunately I cannot tell you all about the “little man armrest hogger” who sat by me to Maidenhead and I cannot tell you all about the bloke in Ain’t Half Hot Mum shorts who say by me to Reading.

What I can tell you about is the ranging hurricane of a tweet war which has become known as #cupgate because it was still going on by the time I reached Reading and boarded Carriage E (42333) on the 18:37 Frome Service.

Basically to cut a long story short, it is possible to get a free cup of hot water from a FGW on-board café providing the following criteria are all fulfilled:

• The water is for one of the following reasons:
• Warming baby food
• Taking medication
• Assisting with childbirth
• Creating a rainforest atmosphere for 1st Class Passengers
• Washing smalls
• All cups must be accounted for by:
• Being signed for in triplicate
• Having the serial number of the cup tattooed in your armpit
• A signed waiver from both parents an at least 3 grandparents
• Electronic receipt from Marky Mark’s butler
• Under no circumstances must the water be used for:
• Brewing tea
• Holding under the air con sensor so it actually turns on
• The benefit and comfort of Standard Class Passengers

It’s worth noting that 1st Class Passengers as well as being entitled to as much hot water as their colostomy bags can handle, can also partake of hot unicorn’s blood served in a gem encrusted griffin’s skull (on production of 1st Class Ticket only.)

See you tomorrow……..

44015 – 06:57 Thursday 8th May

44015

An interesting start to the day. 

Not on the train. That was about as exciting as a bowl of Weetabix for breakfast (other cereals are just as tasteless) with all the excitement being provided by Ginger-Kindle-Reader stepping on my toe. But I’ll say this for Carriage 44015 (playing the part of Carriage A on the 06:57) it got me to Paddington on time and in one piece…..apart from the toe.

But the exciting thing was a lovely mail from FGW’s lovely Jess who seemed inexplicably excited by the fact that not only have I now achieved the first 20 captures but she now has a copy of my spreadsheet onto which she can log my progress. If I was a betting man I reckon this will be blu-tacked up to the FGW office wall within the day and a green day-glo pen waiting on the side ready to mark off the next victims in the quest. Oh Ollie, Leo and Grant may whinge and moan that there’s no room for their pull out and keep World Cup chart but we all know which is more exciting and which one has more chance for running longer than a fortnight.

All together now…..”Back home……they’ll be thinking about us….”

40104 – 18:37 Wednesday 7th May

40104

As good old Victor Meldrew might have exclaimed, “I don’t bloody believe it!” – Tonight I leapt about the 17:49 Worcester Service and immediately sat down in Carriage E, 42055, and it only goes and turns out that I’ve already been in this carriage!

What makes this even more annoying is that the journey to Reading was interesting enough to have a couple of stories to tell. Well I say interesting, what I really mean is annoying as the first thing that greeted me was the same bloody chap as a couple of days ago speaking to his kids on the phone. This time though it wasn’t a rehash of what the little brat had had for tea but rather a quick run through of today’s homework…..”and how many trees did you have to draw? Mmm, and did you do them neatly?”…..as I say, you can’t fault his commitment but I wish he’d do it before he leaves work or from the privacy of the toilet.

Then I ended up sitting next to little Miss First Big Job who immediately rang a friend as soon as she sat down to have a good old moan about her day at work….”and then it was like, and I was like, so she was all like and I mean no-one was like, so it was all like that in the end.” On and on and on and on and on, until I wished I’d bought shares in the word “like”. 

And then of course she entered cliché phase, “and so I was like to Alisha (yes of course, she couldn’t just be Emma could she) and she was like back to me, but Lissy (quite, it wouldn’t be Claire would it) you’re so not like that. I think I need to work in a place like a university and not like a secondary school.”

Why not try working in a place like a workplace! ARRRRGGGHH.

It was about this time I received a tweet from lovely Jo who had just checked in to tell me that apparently whilst Rachel from marketing is young and attractive, she doesn’t use self-tan. So that’s me told! And whilst on the medium of the tweet I spotted this from @_Funnynames_ which had me wetting myself……much to Lissy’s disgust as it disturbed her moaning…….like.

It was quite a relief to get to Reading and swap to the Frome Service and Carriage 40104 which is a Carriage F and my very first of this type of carriage. Obviously it was one of those ones with ½ Standard Class and ½ buffet rather than ½ 1st Class and ½ buffet which raises the question as to how on earth I’m going to capture the 1st Class Carriages……….answers on a postcard to the usual address.

42029 – 17:33 Tuesday 6th May

42029

It was a good news journey home, not least because I managed to not cough up a lung on my 100 yard dash for the 17:33 Paignton Service and certainly not least because Carriage B (42029) offered up a lovely double berth into which I could snooze the 30 minutes into Reading.

But the main piece of good news come through round about Slough (yes, that’s right, a sentence with “good news” and “Slough” in it) when Grant (he of my Twitter spat last night) confirmed that not only had he passed on the contents of my Service Improvement suggestions but he’d already received a reply with regards to one of them.

The reply came from someone called Rachel who works in marketing (so she’s no doubt young, attractive and probably uses self-tan) and is apparently responsible for all Season Ticket holder benefits. Rachel delighted in being able to tell me that there were in fact some Season Ticket benefits already in place, more specifically to the tune of 2 weekend tickets as long as I signed up to the marketing email communications. She also teasingly told me that there were some further “surprise and delights” (her words not mine) in the pipeline.

Well all I can say is, bring it on Rachel, I’ll take any number of freebies you can fling at me! If you need any suggestions for the “surprise and delights” (her words not mine) then here’s my top 5:

• A ride in the cab of a HST – Seriously I keep mentioning this and can confirm once again that if FGW would ever give me this I would never ever complain about anything ever again. The 2 toots on the horn are still a deal-breaker though.
• A redesign of the standard class seats which gives each passenger their own armrest.
• The ability to turn off the Express Café announcements for the duration of my journey. I really don’t need to know about the porridge.
• The right to give a dead-leg to anyone in the quiet carriage who makes more noise than the rustle of a newspaper.
• More hats for FGW staff. Not strictly a service improvement suggestion but I do believe that a smart peaked cap will put a spring in the step of all FGW personnel.

44074 – 06:57 Tuesday 6th May

44074

A lovely long sunny bank holiday might do wonders for the soul and for the niggling DIY jobs that have been put off for the last six months, but it doesn’t do so much for progress on the Carriage Capture. Nor does a duplicate carriage on Friday evening which meant it wasn’t until this morning with Carriage A on the 06:57 that I was able to get things going again with 44074 captured and safely put in the bag.

There was nothing to report on the journey apart from my neighbour’s thigh pressing into mine which wouldn’t be a problem apart from the fact that he had a beard and hissing headphones, but what is to report is the twitter spat I allowed myself to be foolishly dragged into yesterday evening. Perhaps it was watching Ronnie O’Sullivan allow the chance of a 6th World Title slip from his grasp that had made me so peevish or perhaps it was just spotting this self-pitying tweet from @FGW:

Don't you understand? It's not us, it's all your fault!

Now I know that the limit of 140 characters isn't exactly the ideal basis for getting across nuanced points but there really is a list of things that the FGW should never try to do on the medium of tweet (for details of this list please leave a comment on the blog) and unfortunately Grant’s no doubt well intentioned message here just came across as a pathetically winging comment that seems to suggest that any lack of improvement in the service is the passenger’s fault.

The fact is however that I have fedback service improvement suggestions to FGW on more than one occasion but have so far never received any sort of reply or acknowledgement from a manager with responsibilities in that particular area of the business. I have had recognition of receipt of my emails and I have had further discussion on these points with members of the communications team but as for having some sort of tip of the hat in my direction from someone from the upper echelons……..well as I say, their stove-pipe top hats are staying firmly attached to their heads.

Now the phrase “Service Improvement” is a curious one in itself because in the three years I’ve been a constant commuter, I have seen not one single improvement. That’s not to say of course there hasn’t been good service, there has been, plenty of it in fact but things don’t actually get any better. Service levels seem to be strangely circular with period of months with no issues whatsoever followed by a similar period where everything seems to fall apart at the seams. But none of this has anything to do with “service improvement”; there aren’t more trains, the fares haven’t gone down, there’s no new facilities, there’s no new choices. The standard of an average journey is the same as it was in, in my case anyway, 2011. Now I’m sure if FGW were directly challenged on this they would quote the new Reading Station or the plans for the roll out of WiFi (really? Wifi by 2014? That’s nothing to be proud of….) but all of this is either the work or investment of other partners or too little a lot lot lot too late. If I'm wrong here of course, let me know......tell me of the extra services, tell me of the new trains that run all night, explain how my season ticket also enables me to a free coffee, go into detail about the new seats with extra room, wax lyrical about the new ticket offices and their extended opening hours, sing from the rooftops about the additional work with your partners which has seen a decrease in the percentage of infrastructure failures........my ears, unlike the door to Marky Mark's inbox, always open.

Anyway to cut a long and drawn out twitter conversation short, what’s happened now is that I have emailed a couple of service improvement suggestions to Grant directly and he has promised to chase these up and ensure that I do get a response from someone appropriate. (Not that Grant himself has as yet acknowledged the mail yet, which is curious considering one of the points here is the subject of acknowledgement….) So the clock is ticking Grant and if anyone wants to follow my progress on this mission the hashtag you’ll need is #NotJasonNess 

44009 – 06:57 Friday 2nd May

44009

Thank goodness for Friday trains and their surplus of seats that allowed me to luxuriate in a double seat in Carriage A and allow all the other passengers to avoid my hangover breath and hangover face.

Everything was going swimmingly, I was catching up on some much needed sleep and the other passengers were managing to evade my ugly mug, until we approached the outskirts of Slough and ground to a screeching halt. It turned out that there was, according to FGW anyway, signalling problems but this was being “robustly challenged” by the rest of the commuting twitteratti who were claiming it was down to a broken down train stuck in the station.

What wasn’t helping matters was that poor old Jo, who was manning the FGW twitter feed rather like General Custer guarding the fort at Little Big Horn, was also reporting other broken down trains stretching from Taunton to Newbury and from Castle Cary to Reading. It looked very much like @FGWDodgy_Norman ‘s orchestrated maintenance disaster plan had come to fruition and his timed “spanners in the works” were exploding exactly on cue.

When all was said and done, when the dust had settled and when Jeremy had said “at the end of the day”, I was 9 minutes late into Paddington which I guess for a Friday and without the energy to join in the FGW Twitter kicking isn’t too bad.

42081 – 18:37 Wednesday 23nd April

42081

Well it all kicked off as I waited for the Frome service on Platform 7 at Reading.

The tweets were flowing in, the platform boards were flashing around, the best website in the world realtimetrains.co.uk was updating faster than the speed of html and the message that was being received was that there was a signalling problem at Hayes!

After I’d picked myself up from the floor and sent the obligatory sarcastic tweet to FGW it turned out that services didn't seem to be affected at all and certainly trains were running out of London quite normally.

This was very good news not least because I wouldn’t be late for the West Berkshire CAMRA Community Pub of the Year presentation for 2014. So it’s congratulations to the Tally Ho! of Hungerford Newtown and congratulations to Carriage 42081, the first Carriage C of the Carriage Capture.

Now try drinking 3 pints of ale on a school night and say that 10 times.

44060 – 06:57 Tuesday 22nd April

The Easter Weekend has to be the best weekend of the whole year without a shadow of a doubt and I would gladly bare-chested wrestle anyone to the death who claims to the contrary, but that being said one thing I did miss over the four days of enforced chocolate eating was the constant stream of shared commuting hell that my virtual cohorts experience. It’s definitely one of those situations where you start to count your blessings as the only thing that was untoward with my journey into town today was the reverse formation of the 06:57 whereas everyone else seemed to be battling with tidal waves, rabid dogs and people talking too loudly in their phones.

That’s not to diminish the unsettling effects of a reverse formation of course. Apart from the fact I have to slog my way to the opposite end of the platform it also means that other more fair weather travellers are now encroaching into my space and my favourite Carriage A gets much fuller as a result.

Carriage A on this particular service was carriage number 44060 and I managed to get a seat next to a regular chap who scores about 7 out of 10 on the scale of good travelling neighbours. He never hogs any of the armrest and never makes any unnecessary noise apart from the constant keypad tapping on his Blackberry. He must have been catching up on Easter break emails as the device never left his hand for the whole journey and there were so many to catch up on by the time we were pulling into Platform 9 he was all of a flap scrabbling to put away his glasses, files and all manner of accoutrements. Usually after each email he zips the phone back into various jackets and compartments only to go through the reverse un-zipping procedure 10 minutes later when the reply drops in so at least on this occupation we were both spared any zip induced RSI damage.

Arrival at Paddington was punctual if not slightly early and my disembarkation was only marred by the fact that in reverse formation my chances of trying to surreptitiously get a photo of the carriage number was foiled by the stampede of suits making a charge for the tube. So instead you’ll have to make do with a screenshot of three very fine tweets from the Uptight Commuter (@uptightcommuter) which very succinctly sums up today’s commuting joys.

Hope the poo was most enjoyable....

So, that’s 3 down, 444 to go.

44023 – 20:35 Thursday 17th April

44023

The very day after the late night Oranges and Lemons tour was a Things You See At Lunch (TYSAL) expedition featuring none other than general train nerd and all round amusing fellow @slowpokesam and his side-kick brother @mmmmmmatthew – You can read all about this epic adventure on the TYSAL Blog but apart form the chance of giving my liver a well earned rest there was also another opportunity for a Carriage Capture on the return leg of the journey.

The 20:35 service to Plymouth made itself the ideal candidate for just that opportunity for two outstanding reasons; one, it allowed us enough time to stock up on Upper Crust #baguette goodness before boarding the train and two, we could sail all the way through to Newbury before catching a train returning in the opposite direction to destination Thatcham.

Now, before the ticket police amongst you accuse us of making an authorised journey I would direct you to compare the FGW journey planner and then look at the National Rail version. Basically and hopefully not becoming too boring, one of the sites would suggest you can travel in this fashion whilst the other one suggests you can’t.

I suppose it should have been expected that an evening service on the day before the Easter Holidays would be busy and indeed it was meaning the three crap musketeers couldn’t sit together and would have to be separated in the way primary school teachers separate unruly children. I grabbed what must have been the last unreserved seat in Carriage 44023 which was performing duties of the quiet Carriage A, whilst the boys slunk off to make a racket in Carriage B.

I discussed in the last update how the quietness of Carriage A seems to diminish throughout the day and this service was no different except that the couple just across the aisle from me were not only chatting like they were through to the last two of the great British “chat-off” but had the temerity to be talking in the most pretentious way possible. He was discussing his book on Istanbul whilst she was eating a takeaway pack of sushi. (I mean, sushi, come on. Sushi is not a packed lunch food and if you’re going to be affected enough to eat it in public then I’m going to judge you and come to the conclusion you’re probably a twat.) Anyway the clincher was when we he, in the middle of regaling a family story about a pregnant relation said and this is an exact quote – “…and Noah, well he is utterly charming….”

At this point I retired to the vestibule and took the photo of the carriage number.

40101 to 44101 and everything inbetween.

Do I need another blog? Yeah, about as much as a fish needs a bicycle, probably one of those twattish fold-up Brompton ones that make all riders look like they’ve just escaped from the circus. As if I haven’t got enough to do with my hectic film star lifestyle than spend time writing some more appalling composed drivel that only the bewildered will read, but unfortunately my inane attraction to lists and collecting has led me to accept a new literary diary challenge which will surely only prove less attractive than any of the other blogs.

The other day I learnt through the First Great Western (FGW) Twitter feed that there were a total of 54 HST (High Speed Train) carriages. The number was later amended to 420 (the 54 coming from the number of HST “sets” (that’s a whole train to you and me)) but it still set my very simple and slightly OCD laden mind wondering whether I could possible visit and use every single carriage during my daily commute into and back out of London.

I also imagined I could maybe use this blog as a therapeutic methodology to expunge my daily frustrations with the whole experience of commuting. Now before anyone accuses me of inventing this blog just as an excuse to batter FGW around the proverbial dangly things and take them to task for their service failings, I’d like to confirm that’d you’d be absolutely correct. But I also want to use this as a general rant-platform to rail against the frustrations of commuting in general and maybe promote my fellow virtual commuters, without whom the three or so hours a day I spend on the tracks would be a non-awakening nightmare.

In order to log my carriage capture progress I have been very handily provided with a list of all FGW HST carriage numbers (turned out the grand total is 447) by none other than the FGW’s Twitter Team’s answer to Kylie Minogue, the chip fiend that is called Jess. Amazingly what Jess also agreed to was that for every 20 different carriages I visit she’ll supply a signed photo of one of the Twitter Team! As I’m sure you’ll agree, this will be a fantastic prize for those of us who are stuck on the anonymous side of FGW’s Twitter interactions without a clue of the visigogs of the persons on the other end of the keyboard. What she also mentioned was that should I completely achieve the immense task and visit all 447 carriages, FGW will lay on an all expenses paid day out for me and my extended family to ride on the foot plate of a HST, toot the horn, east as many Extress Café #baguettes as I like all to the accompaniment of FGW CEO Marky Mark Hopwood as he serenades us on the 5 string banjo. I should point out that at least one of these prize offers has been completely made up.

Anyway, pencils and tartan flasks at the ready, it’s time to go carriage spotting………