TrainMan and others.

Regular readers will recall my fellow traveller nicknamed "Train Man". He is making the habit of commenting on this blog and to much amusement.

Sadly he gets a different train now but it is nice to have his thoughts reaching us through the Interweb.

The 07.18 club continues to expand. There are now 5 of us that travel to Kingham from the same town:

Chris
Con
Robyn
Me
Ridiculously tall, good looking man

There must be others.

TTF

The view from my new improved seat

For those of you who enjoy hearing about how our rail network is developing / crumbling, I have provided below a picture of the view I now get from my seat on the 07.18.

Now I appreciate that the idea is to provide better facilities to customers in the form of improved leg room (which there is), a power socket at every seat (which there is), armrests aplenty and a nice new clean carriage feel.

However, you will notice that you can't actually see anyone. This rather limits my fun on the train as most of my writing is of an observational kind. What am I to do? I suppose we could go a bit WWI and buy a periscope for peering over the top.

Also, the height of these new seats means finding a seat when you get on the train absolutely fraught with danger. Imagine if you will that you have just joined the train and you look down the carriage and you see no-one... Your hear leaps for joy at the prospect of so much space, peace and quiet.

But then you start to walk down the carriage and discover as you were about to leap into an empty pair of seats, that they are already occupied by a sleeping person who has been on the train for a number of hours. "Oh, sorry" you mutter as you exrtricate your bag and your hands from their clothes..

How could this happen? Easy. They were hidden by the new seats that are so tall, the tops of them are often covered in cloud.

Hurrumph.

TTF

Famous People on the Train

A few months ago I had the pleasure of meeting Michael Portillo on Paddington station. We had a brief chat which concluded with him asking if I worked for the Security Service.

Most amusing. Jolly nice chap actually.

So today I was at Paddington waiting for my train and I saw Lord Douglas Hurd. Felt compelled to go over and have a chat. Very jolly fellow and we had a nice chat. Apparently he is keeping busy. He go the same train as me and was sat in Standard class.

You will notice that there is a blue tinge to the people I meet. That's 'cos I would kick sand in the face of any labour MP.

TTF

More Etiquette for the journey hardened commuter

The Trainfellow would like to apologise for the non-running of this blog. This was due to circumstances beyond our control. The trainfellow once again apologises for this and for any inconvenience caused.

Right, now we've got that out of the way, I must tell you about a most amusing Etiquette incident on the train this week.

It was a very crowded morning due to the train running in what is excitingly called "reverse formation" (Imagine a squadron of fighter jets trying to do that - it would end in tears I'm sure). The effect of reverse formation seems to be to distribute people more evenly around the train, thus making my journey a little less pleasant.

I was stuck across the aisle from the man pictured below:

Sorry about the quality but the point is he was properly asleep - not just a polite little nod off. This was a deep level of sleep where you lose awareness of the facts that follow:

1) You are dribbling and muttering into your quite extensive beard

2) You are snoring so loudly that even the people who are wearing headphones and playing their music very loudly (this includes me) can still hear the snore and in fact the driver has slowed down the train to take account of some "unaccounted vibrations in carriage B". All down to this man's snoring..

3) A little bit of a whiff from the flatulence that has been caught in your trousers since you broke wind near Abergvenny where this train starts off in the morning.

So I hear you ask, how does all of this relate to Etiquette and the commuter - well all of the points above should illustrate why this man needs to go on the commuter course run by First Great Western at Paddington on alternate Mondays...

TTF

And I'm back

The silence over the last few weeks has been due to a number of factors - holidays, birth of 1st child, consequent paternity leave and so on. However, I am pleased to be back and noting the interesting ways of my fellow commuters.

Today I had an interesting observation as I caught a very quiet 7.18 to Paddington.

A chap in a nice pin stripe suit (who incidentally was wearing brilliant socks - the sort of thing I aspire to - they were pink and blue stripes) expressed some suprise that the train had turned up on time..
I have him a questioning look and it turns out that the automated train mis-information system had said the train would be 20 mins late. He was then suprised when the train showed up on time.

I refer to a previous post - I commented on the time machine nature of the train and I am glad that someone else has finally experienced what I have been going on about.


No stories of "train managers" to amuse you this week although I did sit next to a group of platform staff from Oxford who had just been on a training day somewhere. They were very dull.

TTF

Bored and no commuting

TTF is on a little break due to the fact that his baby is maybe on the way... Getting bored waiting for it to arrive but I'm sure that's not a feeling I'll ever have again....

Updates will follow.

Holidays

Recent weeks have left me with little to say about my fellow commuters or indeed about our friends at Network Rail and First Great Western. The holiday season tends to put me in a less cynical mood.

I do have basic hatred of the idea of going to work in August - it just seems wrong. The French don't work in August. Absolutely brilliant idea. Anyway, I took a couple of pictures of the view from my sun lounger. This is the best one:TTF