The Cotswold Line Trains

Mon 20 Aug 2007, 13:35

How drearily predictable FGW's implementation of the half-price ticket offer was. Consider these points:

1. The external ticket machine at Charlbury had not been reprogrammed to dispense half-price fares. I saw several people on Thursday afternoon who were unaware of the half-price offer trying to buy their tickets from the machine - I told them not to bother because they could get reduced fares on the train. Had I not been there they would have paid full whack, which would presumably have pleased FGW no end. Could the machine not have been switched off last week or at least a sticker placed on it saying that cheaper tickets were available on the train?

2. I tried to buy a ticket on the train on Thursday afternoon from Charlbury to Cholsey and the conductor could not issue it because his hand-held machine had not been appropriately reprogrammed. I had to go out through the barrier at Oxford and buy my ticket there, nearly missing my connection as a result.

3. On both Wednesday and Saturday the barriers at Paddington were not accepting the half-price tickets - why?

4. The 09.20 to London on a weekday is usually operated by a five-car Adelante and is usually very full. Given that we are in the school holidays and the half-price offer was in force how did FGW respond to the likely extra demand for its sevices? Yep, by deploying the same old five-car Adelante which was consequently jam-packed (full and standing all the way from Charlbury to Paddington). Any new passengers attracted by the special offer have no doubt now been disillusioned by the overcrowding.

I suppose some bright spark in a stripey shirt and a nasty suit thought up the idea of half-prices fares but no-one else at FGW actually thought through how it was going to be implemented. When I think of FGW management I am reminded of the immortal words of Sybil Fawlty: "There are better-organized creatures than you running round farmyards with their heads cut off!"