Great Western Coffee Shop

Such larks this morning on the 0857 from Tilehurst.  I aimed to take the 0927 to Goring and walk back home, but the 0857 was 19 minutes late, so I hopped on that. Then the driver announced there would be a delay as some problem had to be sorted out.

Five minutes later, she said that the train would run non-stop to Didcot and that passengers for intermediate stations should get off, suggesting that we could take the train that was pulling into Platform 4 for Reading and catch a stopping service back towards Didcot (that would have called at Tilehurst anyway). My carriage was very close to the footbridge, but I doubt that even I could have got across in time – with the new timetable trains don’t hang around.

However, the doors on our train remained locked and off it went with a number of captive passengers aboard. There was then a sequence of messages about the next station stop, running through all those to Didcot. The driver confirmed that our next stop was Didcot.

Five minutes later, she asked the passenger who was banging on her door to stop, as she was driving a train at 100mph.

At Didcot she remained in her cab as half-a-dozen passengers remonstrated with her; most were philosophical, apart from the inevitable Mr Angry. (“They don’t give a s ***.”) After they had dispersed, she emerged from her cab and walked to the other end of the train to take it back non-stop to Reading and then calling at the usual stations to  Paddington.

Eventually we got on the 1013. No problem for me. Though it was dull at Tilehurst and sunny at Didcot, it was very misty at Goring as we spend through at 0935 and it was only just beginning to clear when I started my walk at 1025.