Further recent travel by FGW

[whole diary]

[Phil Farmer]

Following on from my Cornish trip, I decided to travel the Thames branches off the Great Western Mainline for which FGW^▸ (First Great Western) also do a Day ranger Ticket.     To complete these, I parked my car at Hungerford, where I bought a day return to Reading.     To my suprise, the car paking was FREE.  Now that a rarity in this day and age.    Trying to buy a Thames Branches Day Ranger Ticket at Reading proved difficult and it took the ticket clerk several minutes to find it in the system.  They obviously don't sell many....
I took the train to Twyford for the Henly on Thames Branch, then to Maidenhead for the branch to Bourne End / Marlow, followed by Slough for Windsor ( very busy service, standing room only ).  A big thankyou to the conductor on the return journey from Winsor, having closed the doors seconds before I got there, walked acroos the platform to see along the platform curviture, uand upon seeing me, promptly unlocked the doors again to allow me to board.
A very strange situation on the Henly branch, where the driver of the train switched off his engine and coasted into Henly Station, something I've never come across before.
Finally, the Greenford Branch, only five passengers on the whole train.
Again, clean and tidy stock and apart from the Windsor branch, more than adequate, but out of twelve services travelled on that day - NOT ONE TICKET CHECK.

[IndustryInsider]

A very strange situation on the Henly branch, where the driver of the train switched off his engine and coasted into Henly Station, something I've never come across before.

Most diesel trains can coast for some time with the engines switched off. With drivers being made ever more aware of the fuel/noise pollution and costs, you can expect to hear this more often. Depending on how long a train is then going to stay stabled until its next working then there's quite a lot of money to be saved!

Turbo's could coast for up to ten minutes with engines off before the air system drops to a level where the brakes would apply - though this does depend on the integrity of the air system. In addition, the heating and air con will go off, the CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) will stop, and the lighting in the carriages may drop down to one third lighting, but none of those make much difference on a nice summers day.

[Phil Farmer]

That explains it - thankyou

[Mookiemoo]

but out of twelve services travelled on that day - NOT ONE TICKET CHECK.

Common problem......... I o it every day and have only had my ticket checked ONCE on any of the thames valley lines - and that was a pair of RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector, or Retail Price Index, depending on context) who got on at slough.

The problem is - even when they o get people - they dont do squat about it

FC^▸ (First Class, or Fat Controller, or Football Club, depending on context) on those trains are full of SC  - all they  is turf them out!  whats the incentive not to o it again.  What they need to do is insist on anyone caught HAS to upgrade or be fined.  That would cover the on occasion me who on the rare occasion needs to upgrade and the scrotes who will be put off if they get stung once.

I dont know what they do in SC but given i've never seen them go to SC - they get on, hoof out FC an then sit there for the duration......... Lord knows - maybe there are four of them and I only see two!


I suspect the local lines is where most of the doging goes on

[r james]

I fail to understand why some sort of checks cant be made, even on the busiest of lines.

[vacman]

I fail to understand why some sort of checks cant be made, even on the busiest of lines.

Most of the Thames valley DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) services are DOO^▸ (Driver-Only Operation (that is, trains which operate without carrying a guard)), also, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have done away with agencey barrier staff at most of the TV^▸ (Thames Valley, or TeleVision, depending on context) stations to "save money" and put all the RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector, or Retail Price Index, depending on context)/RPO's there leaving no-one to do on-train, rediculous.