And in good old-fashioned GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) tradition, OOC^▸ (Old Oak Common (depot)) could be renamed Paddington Road...

If this is such a fantastic idea then presumably somebody is calling for something similar at Stratford?

If they are not then it might give some insight into what other people would be thinking about it...

Presumably that notice was supposed to be a joke that may or may not go down well based on one’s own preferences (much the same as mine...). However, it also smacks to me of a good old-fashioned attitude to customer service that was prevalent .for at least 30 years after the end of WW2, when many businesses appeared to take the view that they were doing you a favour in serving you at all.

The railway in those days almost uniquely did not take that attitude, with steps being taken to provide the advertised passenger service come what may. (The less said about freight customers the better because their engines were often nicked to keep the passenger service running, but that’s another story altogether)

It certainly seems that the modern day railway is summed up by that notice very well. Trains cancelled at the drop of a hat; connections missed because privatisation prioritises punctuality over customer service; and if you think you’ll get something to eat or drink from the on-board catering service, you may well go hungry.

If the railway advertises a timetabled service then it should provide that service except in exceptional circumstances. Cancelling an entire shift’s worth of trains (eg Westbury to Swindon) because the driver has gone suck is not exceptional and should be unacceptable

In terms of railways, it should not be for the customer to lower their expectations, it should be for the companies concerned to raise their game

On case anybody is interested, here is my album "50 years on" on Flickr

https://www.flickr.com/photos/93122458@N08/albums/72157684758170682

My other cancellation story comes from July 2018 when I was off on a pilgrimage to Rose Grove. For our younger members this was the site of one of the last 3 operational steam depots on BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)), the other two being Carnforth and Lostock Hall, and they all closed in August 1968. This was in connection with a “50 years on” series of photographs that I was producing at the time.

I was also taking the opportunity to travel on the Todmorden to Burnley line via Copy Pit, a line that had little if any passenger trains in 1968. I therefore presented myself at Manchester Victoria for the 1304 departure via the route. The train was showing as on time on the platform information screen.

Suddenly the screen changed to “cancelled.” Muttering curses because I wouldn’t now be going via Copy Pit, I crossed the footbridge to get a train to Blackburn via Bolton, but by the time I got there my original train was showing as on time again. Muttering more curses I crossed back to the original platform but found the train cancelled again. But a few seconds later it was showing as on time again. It was clearly time to ask questions about what the devil was going on.

It turned out that there was a signalling failure at Wigan and the train, a Southport to Blackburn via Manchester ad Todmorden, was the wrong side of it. But trains couldn’t travel in the other direction either, so someone had the initiative to take a 2 car Pacer (for it was 2018) that was working a Blackburn to Southport that wasn’t going to get beyond Manchester, and send it back to Blackburn as a replacement for the unit stuck at Wigan

It appears that the changing information display was happening because someone was trying to manually input the information whilst the automated system “knew” the train was cancelled so kept overriding the manual input

I did get to Rose Grove via my preferred route.

I have a couple of unusual cancellation tales

About a year ago my old school friend who now lives in Berlin was over in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and announced that he’d never travelled on the Melksham line and, as he was going to be in Chippenham anyway I tagged along with him. The plan was to go down on the 1310 or so ex-CPM^» (Chippenham - next trains) and come back on the 1415 or so. The first leg went like clockwork.

We got back in the train at Westbury. The booked departure time came; the booked departure time went. After about 10 minutes the TM^‡(resolve) came on the PA^▸ (Public Address) saying that there was an incident between Chippenham and Swindon and that the train would terminate at Chippenham. It idly crossed my mind that that might have caused a platform occupation problem at Chippenham.

A few minutes later the TM came on again to say the train was now cancelled and we should travel via Bath. We ended up at Bath and waited for the 1532 ex-Bristol. This train was showing as on time on the platform departure boards but was showing as cancelled on whatever online web source he was looking at. Eventually an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) turned up running wrong road and a trainload of passengers got off and we were told this was the 1543 to Paddington

I found out when I got home that this “incident” was actually this train that had been held for an hour at Swindon and had clearly been terminated short at Bath to regain its booked working

I’ll tell the other tale later as this post is already rather long!!

I thought I noticed this thread locked when I looked in this morning. Am I going crackers or was it locked for a period of time?

I also think that there is an unfortunate tendency by politicians in general, and Grant Shpps in particular, to aim for headline-grabbing withouy bothering tothink these "polices" through.

In this particular case, obvious practical problems are:

•   When one branch of government is people to walk and cycle to get fitter and save the NHS some money, and also to help with pollution and global warming, now is hardly the time to put obstacles in they of cycling
•   There are no age limits on cycling, and some are ridden by children below the age if criminal responsibility
•   Cycles are not fitted with speedometers, and to legislate for retro-fitting would be more than is required for older cars under current legislation


Meanwhile, other headline-grabbing howlers have included-

•   Use agency workers to break strikes. Will all agency workers who sign the road from Euston to Preston. Liverpool and Manchester, or are signalling competent, please form an orderly queue. You can gather in that phone box over there...
•   Why can’t maintenance workers in St Pancras walk over to Kings cross to work over there? They’re all maintenance workers, after all! Good idea – we could do the same with politicians – why not just install Kier Starmer as PM? He’s a politician too, you know...

They might be there to monitor the progress of 1X01 early on Christmas Day... 

My travelling habits have changed markedly but mainly due to medical reasons. Due to my glaucoma I can no longer see much out of the window and have difficulty in finding my way in places I know, let alone unfamiliar ones

Then back in July I got a very mild dose of COVID but it appears to have affected my lungs, exacerbated of course by 60 years of smoking. 5 years ago I would think nothing of getting a train to Didcot and walking up the DNS^▸ (Domain name service) to Upton and back, or walking from Temple Meads along the Bristol & Bath railway path to Yate or Saltford – today I walked a quarter of a mile from Chippenham bus station to the Town Bridge bus stop, and had to stop twice for a blow-up on the way

Advancing years don’t come alone...

What is the point of a strike if nobody notices its happening?

In addition of course, it takes two to tango, and I often wonder why some people automatically blame only one side, without perhaps being in full posession of the facts.

Sorry for the off-topic comment, but I for one am getting increasingly agitated by the union-bashing tabloids and government, and we would perhaps all benefit from not havinf this forum full of it too.

That was in 2018 when my glaucoma was not as bad as it is now, when I was beginning to find out what I thought I could see and do and what I actually could see and do, were two different things

Birmingham New Street to Moor Street is one that absolutely flummoxed me a few years ago

60 Years ago I knew the way; 20 years ago I knew the way. Now the Council has redeveloped virtually everything in between, and at one point I ended up walking through a department store 
Finally I found a passing street sweeper and he pointed me in the right direction...

I can't give a definitive answer, but Chippenham booking office once sold me an off peak day return from Paisley Gilmour Street to Irvine. So Id say if it is available at ticket offices in Yorkshire then it should be avaiabke where you are

A summary of my take on the matter:

This passenger should not have been de-trained on a platform with no lift that would enable him to get to an appropriate platform for a train or a bus replacement service for his onward journey. But the facts of the matter were that he was, so appropriate steps should have been taken to assist him. There appear to be two feasible options.

1 Put him on a train from that platform to take him to a station where it would be possible for him to go from one platform to another (if necessary). Presumably the three trains that terminated didn’t stay in the platform and actually went somewhere else, even if as ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock). In my day a quick call to the Duty Station Manager and/or Control would have authorised that.

2 If for some reason he could not be moved off the platform by train, then he should have been moved physically. I do not believe that railway staff are trained to safely carry out such a move, so the emergency services should have been called. Of the three emergency services I would start by contacting the Fire Brigade who are well versed in moving people in stressful situations. So is the ambulance service, of course, but they are more likely to have vehicles tied up outside A&E waiting to unload

After the fuss had died down I would also want to know why that lift was out of action; Lift repairs should be priority work, especially as the railway had removed many barrow crossings so that option is now rarely available.