Great Western Coffee Shop

Some things I have had said to me:

* I had to sit between two strangers
* The buffet catering trolley couldn't get through
* I couldn't get on and had to wait for the next train
* The aisles were blocked with luggage
* I have gone back to using my car
* "I have run out of tickets" ... train manager, TransWilts yesterday  ;D

Please add your "train was so busy that ..." stories

"I could not get back on the train to despatch it!"  -Train Manager working a train
in the run up to Christmas....

Always gets me, that one. Seems as though they ought to be using taxis.....if you can have one stranger next to you, two won't hurt either....

"... I had to sit on the floor and bemoan the state of privatised railways to a journalist. There were actually seats I could use though." - Jeremy Corbyn.

...there were two people stood in the toilet (note: door remained open. No funny business).   

This was an HST. In one of the new style Turbo toilets it could have been 16. 😋


...someone sat on the table, back against the window.  (Relatively common on late night short formed services from Paddington I’ve found).

...that the government insisted on putting prices up by above inflation for a decade to try and dissuade people from using the trains. 😉

On a fairly packed turbo heading out of Paddington a few years ago I heard the following announcement:

"Ladies and Gentlemen we are going to be a few minutes late as we are awaiting the arrival of the catering trolley"

I think this would have gone down better if it hadn't been such a disaster when it eventually arrived. There was no water - except bottled - so no coffee or tea or hot chocolate. The selection of food available for purchase was similarly limited and he only had chocolate bars. Sadly I can't remember his explanation for why there was such a rubbish selection. He had parked the trolley in the vestibule at one end but this forced people from standard to stand in the 1st area to make room.

............it was simply not possible for me to get on the train as there were already people standing all the way down the aisles, in the doorways and perched in the luggage racks.......I reflected, with a rueful smile as the train pulled out on the fact however that this was entirely my own fault for being foolish enough to want to travel to the Westcountry between 4pm and 8pm from Paddington.......

I shared this little gem with my fellow passengers who were also left behind on the platform who, strangely enough, did not agree with me - they all seemed to feel, in a totally illogical manner, that having spent hundreds of pounds on a ticket, they had the right to expect to spend the next 4 hours sitting down, and that GWR should keep their promises to provide more capacity.............I laughed at their naivety and responded "Oooooooooooooos gonna pay for it?"

.............several weeks later, when I was released from hospital, I got the bus home  :)

"Could you", said the train manager handing me his keys with the appropriate key foremost, "unlock and open that door", pointing to the rear driving cab door, "and a few of you stand in there or else I wont be able to get to the panel to open the doors at the next station stop".   

..."passengers for A,B and C are requested to alight and remain on the platform from where alternative road transport will be arranged". (But apparently it wasn't!)

Passenger to man trying to push his way onto the train: ”Excuse me there’s a queue here”

Man to passenger: “Yes sir and I’m the driver.”

“I looked through the window and I saw that people were actually sitting on the roof of the train and hanging on for dear life. I even saw people walking on the roofs of moving trains. There were people crossing the railway tracks by foot and jumping off trains while they were moving, hanging on to the doors….” (from The Road East to India: Diary of a Journey of a Lifetime by Device Rosamund)

Except there weren't. Virgin were forced eventually to release cctv footage of the carriage with 'empty seats' Corbyn walked past and it turned out that they had kids or people who had their heads down on the still picture - but on the video you can see them pop up from time to time. So Corbyn, and the other passengers who complained on that service were correct after all. Branson and co. (supporter of the Tories by pure coincidence), was not.

So you continue walking, right? You don't just give up on the one carriage you look through & start complaining when there were seats elsewhere (prove there weren't). It was false news.

Richard Branson a "supporter of the tories"? On what evidence?

Has he, or any of his companies, ever donated to the party? Has he ever endorsed a candidate?

As far as I can work out he tends to avoid party politics. Where he has made utterances that can be deemed political he's shown to be centrist at worst. Supporting remaining in the EU. Favours a welfare state.

As for the seats. I agree that Richard Branson was selective in the footage he released, and that the footage released some 7 months later, after a Subject Access Request by the journalist accompanying Jeremy Corbyn, did show more clearly that there may not have been seats available for Jeremy and his wife to sit together.

Did Richard Branson enter the debate because he is firmly a tory? I very much doubt it. I strongly suspect his overriding concern was protecting brand Virgin. I also suspect he'd do that if Virgin was being criticised by any politician, left, right or centre.

There was actually very little genuinely previously unseen footage in the August 2017 version. It was spun as a revelation by 'Double Down News', although nearly all of it can be found within the original release, although not necessarily within particular selected portions circulated by particular newspapers etc. 'Double Down' was in part directed by Yannis Mendez, the taker of the Corbyn footage, and was therefore a partisan rather than an independent journalist.

In the end my personal conclusion is that no one came out of it smelling particularly good: Corbyn, Mendez, Branson, or the Guardian (amongst others).

Largely agree, however I don't think threatening to sue the NHS does much for "Brand Virgin" and we also had the recent Daily Mail debacle.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/28/nhs-pays-virgin-threatens-sue-losing-contract/

Generally speaking businessmen such as Branson etc will swim with the tide politically, especially where they have Business interests in the public sector - pragmatism comes before principles.

Common sense however would suggest that he and very few others in his position would have much time for Corbyn.