The Cotswold Line Trains

Wed 5 Sep 2007, 11:18

Oh dear, that serves me right for telling a story that shows me in a bad light! My example wasn't meant to illustrate how crap I am at claiming compensation (although I admit that in this case I almost certainly am) but rather to act as a counterbalance to Ian's "aren't FGW wonderful?" comment. I was aiming to highlight how disorganized, inefficient and dishonest FGW are at boardroom level; is it any wonder therefore that those qualities trickle down to the poor staff who actually have to operate the trains?

If you want further evidence of how inefficient FGW are, consider the recent "half-price travel" offer. As detailed on this website, it was poorly advertised (no posters at all at Charlbury station for example), the ticket machines had not been reprogrammed to dispense the cheaper tickets, staff on the trains were either unwilling or unable to dispense half-price fares (and in one instance even denied their existence!), the barriers at Paddington had not been reprogrammed to accept the cheap tickets and, most importantly perhaps, the trains were overfull to bursting because FGW had not thought to put on extra trains or carriages in expectation of higher passenger numbers.

To address Derek's three points:
1. FGW's head office is in Plymouth so picketing it is not very practical. How are we going to get there - by train?
2. Not paying is actually fairly easy to do. I do it quite often (unintentionally) because there is no way of buying the right ticket before travelling. Has anyone else noticed that the "new" ticket machine at Charlbury does not dispense tickets bought with a Cotswold Line railcard? Yet more evidence of FGW's incompetence - they install a new ticket machine at a Cotswold Line station and it doesn't recognize a Cotswold Line railcard!
3. "Follow DC around". It must be a manifestation of my rampant egotism but I assumed at first that you meant "Follow Derek Collett around"! You can try it if you like but I may well report you for stalking! I assume you are referring to Mr Cameron. This would seem the better option as he at least is in a position to do something about FGW.

To finish on a more positive note, when I prepare the "statistical summary" distilled from the blog (hopefully next month), I suggest we sent it to D. Cameron, as well as to A. Forster, Radio Oxford, BBC South Today, the Oxford Times, etc.