Poor Service

Today, the train has made good at following a theme. That is, being late every day - both on the way to and from work.

I suppose we get used to it in the UK so that when "Gerald" the train manager (honestly, that title confers far too much credit on the person with the title) comes on the tannoy to announce in a broken electronic squark that the train is running late due to one of the following (pick your favourite);

1) Customer Incident

2) Staffing issues

3) Rolling stock failure

4) Poor weather conditions (this includes the old favourites such as leaves on the line and the wrong type of snow)

5) Hangover

6) A customer trying to leave the train at Morton in Marsh (naughty naughty).

we pay little attention and simply carry on reading, sleeping, mp3ing, staring or making notes on the people around you....

The other thing is they always ask us to "read the safety card near your seat" as if we are taxi-ing for take off. Listen pal, we all get the same train every sodding day. We know how to break the windows, not light a fag and scamble away. Please stop telling us.

Anyway, today's incident doesn't involve a weird looking person or anything like that. Today (and you can hear my excitement at this point), the train arrived in reverse formation which means that all the 1st class passengers had to walk from one end of the train to the other. But the thing that caught my attention was that the train manager (there he is again) told us "this train is in reverse formation, AT THE MOMENT". Like they were going to execute a neat trick - maybe a handbrake turn so that by the time we got to Reading, it would be the right way round.

A slightly amused look on my face therefore..