Trains travelling in the wrong direction, will this happen more frequently?

[whole diary]

[paul7575]

Chris Culnane, a passenger on the train, said: "New low for @FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Redhill to Reading train missed the turning to Reading! Changed direction again, back at Redhill for another go."

First Great Western apologised to Mr Culnane, explaining the error was not made by a member of their staff as signalling is controlled by Network Rail.
 

Is this an incident blown out of all proportion as a journalist quotes what he reads on twitter?   

Was this passenger's immediate reaction to a relatively minor amount of hassle to contact the local media?

This sort of 'incident' would never have made the press at all a few years back, and in my opinion still doesn't need to be reported at all...

Paul

[grahame]

I note that post numbers 31, 37 and 41 have been altered this morning, removing much of the vindictive that was there, have been edited without explanation.    This makes it look as if our other member's reactions were completely over the top.    I strongly object to posters on any forum who try to go back and alter history, especially if in doing so they make subsequent posts look like an over-reaction.    For this reason, I feel that the trust I showed just a few hours back has been quickly betrayed (that's something of a record in speed) and I have locked the thread again.   In contrast, the edit in post number 38 is a model example of a good post edit - making it very clear why the edit was done, and not effecting later follow ups.

[grahame]

I have moved a more general question about rail safety standards to a fresh thread
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=12777
as it's something for us to look at / talk about away from this storm.   The posting here originally was a good choice ... the original poster was probably (like I was) hoping to move on without a further storm.  Thanks for trying