Cleaning stock at Weymouth

Yesterday, 01 September 2007, I decide that with nothing else planned I would take a trip to Weymouth.

First snag my train from Yate arrives at BTM^▸ at 0804, the same time as the 0804 leaves for Weymouth.

Saw it leave, a 150 and a 153.

A TPE^▸ liveried 3 car 158 (158798) draws into platform 5 and awaits the incoming service from Cardiff, couples and forms the 0904 to Weymouth, now a 5 car 158.

Uneventful journey running a few minutes late by journeys end but every seat on the train was needed as passengers from Yeovil were hard pressed to find 2 seats together.

At Maiden Newton a load of hikers bailed out.

At Weymouth (arrived Platform 1) 3-car 158 uncoupled and shunted to platform 2 to join, but not couple to, 153 from previous 0804 service from Bristol.

Whilst on forward journey I also pointed out to a number of passengers brandishing all three timetable types, Heart of Wessex line pamplet, FGW^▸ pocket timetable and credit card sixe line timetable that they were all wrong and showed a return service at 1749 when in fact it was at 1721. Arrival at Weymouth and perusal of the line timetable posted in the foyer at the station confirmed this to them.

Arriving back at the station for the 1721 back to Bristol, I walked down the platform and noticed rubbish over the tables of the 3-car 158, some neatly bagged and tied in supermarket bags for ease of cleaning by thoughful passengers from the forward journey, but other visible rubbish was empty beer cans and coke bottles. At least the six females travelling to Weymouth for a 'Hen Night Weekend' and who were sat in the vacinity of myself did put their empty Carling cans in the rubbish bin behind one of their seats.

A SWT^▸ service from Waterloo arrived and within seconds of the last passenger disembarking from the end door of the last carriage a cleaner, female and smartly dressed in standard SWT issue uniform and carrying an empty see thru plastic bin liner boarded and started a sweep through the train for rubbish. A male colleague had started at the other end and both met up in the last but one carriage of the 5-car train.

I would say that within 5 minutes of that train arriving the interior was as spotless as one could get it at a terminal station.

On the other hand the FGW unit which had sat in platform 2 since its arrival there at about noon was still in the untidy state that it had arrived and been left by the inbound passengers.

In an even worse state was the inbound service due to arrive at 1709. This service was a Wessex branded 158, One rubbish bin in the train was jammed full of John Smiths Bitter cans, there were about 6 ermpty Sainsburys carrier bags aroung the carriage and I did notice a Sainburys till receipt which I looked at and it was for 10 4-packs of John Smiths bitter and was from the Frome store. Judging by the number of empty cans strewn about I can well imagine all were drunk en route. Also stewn about were newspapers clearly indicating where the train had come from, South Wales with the South Wales Argos, and Bristol with the Bristol Evening Post, The Sun, The Mirror and The times were other titles I noticed.

The inbound 158 coupled up with the 3-car 158 and I'll call it 'the rubbish pit' set off to Bristol a minute or two down but this was recovered by Catle Cary.

A smartly dressed female who boarded at Westbury refused to sit with, I presume, her boyfriend in one pair of seats, to use her words, 'I'm not sitting there amongst that lot of trash', and walked on through the carriage to seats towards the centre of the coach.

Not very impressed with FGW 'after sales service' today.