Great Western Coffee Shop

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/chippmid.jpg)

I guess you sometimes have to take one or two steps back in order to take three or four steps forward.

Here's a really old "Midland Mainline" train that formed my Didcot to Chippenham service the other evening; actually very comfortable, but also very old .... and well over a year into the current franchise.   I understand that such train(s) have been brought in to provide temporary cover while others are upgraded.

In contrast, my morning train up from Chippenham to Didcot was a newly refurbished unit; personal taste, of course, but I found it less roomy, seats harder, less comfortable.  I would hope more reliable, but the non-working new power point makes me wonder.   The conductor told me that the train staff weren't told if these weren't working, and suggested thay had probably been switched off in the depot; he suggested I move to another coach and try my luck there.

Now - let's be fair - we could be seeing the bathtub effect (http://www.wellho.net/mouth/1221_Bathtubs-and-pecking-birds.html) and teething problems with the new refurbs;  I certainly hope that's all it is!

There isn't anything wrong with the Midland Mainline set!

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/mmlset.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/mmlset2.jpg)

There are those who will say it doesn't fit in with the FGW colour scheme and modern, clean image, Jim ... but you'll find in a previous thread that I found its First Class superior to the First Class in the newly modernised alternative, and I personally can report the same of standard class (my usual mode of travel, as it usually costs less!) the other day.

BUT ... by the end of the franchise, it probably would / will be the worse for ware compared to the sets that are going / will have been through the refurb.

I disagree, when the refurbs are complete it will be the train to travel on and anybody on a long distance journey will be blessed.