Cried the Rabbit in Lewis Carroll's tales involving Alice. Lewis Carroll wrote the books in Oxford, and used to travel the Great Western Railway. I wonder if this was a little bit of foresight in his part, seeing what people would say when First Group ran the line? Probably not, however these are words I frequently heard passengers say this morning.
It all started with the cancellation of the 7.20 service from Cholsey, which is normally an 8 carriage 125 train. The reason given for the cancellation was "a train was delayed in travelling from the depot." it wasn't given as broken down, or anything else, merely delayed. So why wasn't the service merely delayed?
I as many other did then waited patiently for the 7.34 service, which was a two carriage DMU.
We all boarded and there were not many seats left, in fact after the next station it was standing room only. By Tilehurst we had to leave the majority of would be passengers behind. At Reading the same thing happened even after an exodus. It was only once we got to Maidenhead that the driver as part of their apology re the fact we couldn't take all passengers admitted that this train normally had more carriages, however we only had two due to a breakdown of an engine. I lost count of how many passengers failed to catch the train today, bearing in mind this was probably their second choice after the cancelled service I also feel really sorry for them.
If you were one of those left behind then write to Mark Hopwood, MD of FGW, as I know he likes to receive feedback on the service provided.
And if you didn't make it on, I can offer a slight crumb of comfort....it was far from pleasant on the train in terms of cramped conditions, and some rather unfortunate odours produced by fellow passengers.
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