two go on a great western adventure…

Dear GWR
I’ll try to keep this reasonably brief – because I expect a lot of the passengers on yesterday’s 19.03 train from London Paddington to Exeter St David’s might also be writing to you…

1. We arrived in good time, found our coach (coach A) and looked for our seats.
2. The electronic seat displays weren’t working (surprise, surprise!) BUT, thankfully, reserved seat cards had been put in place.
3. We had booked seats 61+62… only to discover that the carriage only had 61 seats (really)!!
4. We (and other passengers) then discovered that the reserved seat cards seemed to have been scattered entirely randomly throughout the carriage (I kid you not!!) and bore no relationship to the numbered seats to which they’d been attached.
5. Annoying and inconvenient as this was, passengers made adjustments as best they could and eventually settled into their seats… despite the frustrations, good humour generally reigned (but staff members were conspicuous by their absence).
6. Two minutes after the train was due to depart, there was an announcement telling us that all passengers had to move into the front five coaches (no apology or explanation, just an announcement)(the train had 10 coaches and we were later advised that a staff member had failed to turn up – which meant they were only able to operate with 5 coaches… which later reverted to 10 coaches because they’d eventually managed to find another member of staff)(are you following this?!).
7. The rear five coaches were already crowded with passengers and you can imagine the displeasure of those affected (and, in some cases, sheer panic!)…
8. After a further 10 minute delay (to allow for passengers to find alternative seats or standing locations in the front five coaches) - and, of course, the notion of securing any reserved seats had long since vanished and people just sat, if they were lucky, wherever they could – the train departed.
9. The journey continued relatively smoothly… albeit late (and I actually felt quite sorry for the train manager – who was trying to cope as best she could).
10. But as we approached Bristol Temple Meads (literally 30 seconds before the train’s arrival), there was another brief announcement telling any passenger who was proceeding beyond Bristol (fortunately, this was our destination), that they needed to be in the FRONT five coaches – as only five coaches would be making the full journey. I can only imagine the consternation of the passengers affected. Why on earth wasn’t this announcement made as the train left Bath Spa station, so that people had time to prepare themselves for their ongoing journeys?

Oh, what fun we had… two go on a Great Western Adventure (indeed!).
Travelling by train and being able to book seats in advance used to be a pleasurable, if relatively expensive, experience. I’m afraid this is no longer the case… journeys have just become experiences to endure rather than enjoy.
Yours sincerely
Steve Broadway

PS: Over the past several weeks, we’ve travelled by GWR (always avoiding busiest times of day) and have been consistently finding that there have been issues with our booked seats (not to mention the odd cancelled train and delayed services). Invariably, the electronic seat display (where applicable) isn’t working and passengers, understandably perhaps, refusing to give up their seats just because someone like me tells them that they’re occupying our booked seats.

PPS: We’ve also experienced a number of occasions when the train has become so crowded that there have been, for example, more than 20 passengers left standing in our coach for entire sections of journeys. It seems that you’re just delighted to sell as many tickets as you can – even if that results in unacceptable, over-crowded trains… and then, ironically (as a train manager announced to us passengers on a train last week), one of the reasons for the late arrival of our train was the large number of passengers getting off and on the train!!