Great Western Coffee Shop

At least I assume so since:

1. We just picked up its crewe

2. The 1821 is now stopping at Hanborough and Shipton because of a problem with the earlier service.

I wonder how late we are going to be as a result - actually probably not that much later since we wont have to wait for the 1751 to clear the tracks ahead of us!

Train fault on 1751

A 180 probably

Ah well, working from home tomorrow so dont mind being a bit late tonight.

Was wondering where it had got to when I arrived at Oxford station and suspected an under-maintained Adelante might be to blame, though if you believed the ever-unreliable ex-Thames Trains info system it was running 15 minutes late, though these screens were outvoted 2-1 by the new Internet-linked ones at the ticket barrier, which both had it cancelled.

With impeccable comic timing, I arrived home to a letter from Plymouth enclosing a compensation voucher for a similar occurrence on December 16 - so at least one person down there knows the terms of the FGW Link compensation scheme!

What made me laugh was the final sentence: "I hope that future journeys will be completely trouble-free."

If only... the compensation claim for tonight will be in the post tomorrow.

Funnily (?) enough, I had a similar letter waiting for me when I got home this evening - "Thank you for your comment card dated 19 December 2007. ... Once again I would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to you and hope that such an incident does not arise in the future."

Well, even more funnily (???) enough, just such an incident did happen again - on 2 January - and again on 7 January.  Comment cards have already been sent to FGW, for each incident, accordingly.

What is the point of FGW writing such bland platitudes, when they must know that such things are probably going to happen again?