Great Western Coffee Shop

So, how was your afternoon journey today. Mine was awful, was of to Salisbury, caught the 15.54 from Trowbridge which I ***just*** managed to squeze on to BUT got off at WEstbury. I can take overcrowding, but that was taking the mick! It's the first time ever I have been actually shacking/feeling faint on a train before!

So, how was your journey?

I had that once.
A 153 vice 158 in the height of the summer in Cornwall. A 158 would have been overflowing. I was crammed in against the door and when I got off I had to sit down fo 5/10 minutes to get my breath back and feel I could walk safely.

I'm really sorry to hear that, Jim.   :(

I can only suspect that you got one of the tatty old two carriage units that normally form the 1753 from Bristol Temple Meads to Nailsea and Backwell?  I was actually impressed this evening - because a nice ex-Silverline two car unit turned up at Bristol, took on board all of the usual crowd of commuters with only a few standing - and with room for those with big mountain bikes as well!  Please bear with me, I'm still not an expert with classes - but this was one I've not seen before.  However, it just showed what a more suitable unit could do, to make my daily journey home quite pleasant!

However I do know what it's like being crammed: some evenings, if I didn't have to get home on time, I'd frankly prefer not to even try getting on the usual 1753, but wait and catch the 1822 instead.   >:(

You were traveling on a Class 150/1.
They are the only FGW too have 2+3 seating inside which means they can hold more people.
They are the earlier versions of the 150/2's, the Wessex Pink units.

Here's what the 1753 looked like when I tried it (nice refreshed Class 150 though) :

(http://www.raildocuments.org.uk/jan08photos/300108bristau1753p1.jpg)

Here's what I suspect you had (with far more passengers obviously) Chris :

(http://www.raildocuments.org.uk/jan08photos/300108class1501unit2.jpg)

Thanks, qprrule and Lee - exactly right!

So why did a 150/1 suddenly turn up, after months of my fuming about the need for exactly such a unit on the 1753???  I thought it must be my birthday, or something!

I had 158746 - With the Wales And West insides!

The 17.15(?) HST to W-s-M was quite late tonight, made it in about 38.

Thanks Jim!

That's interesting, because it's the 1718 (1530 from Paddington) which usually clears all of the 5:00 batch of commuters at BTM (together with the 1725), leaving those who leave the office at 5:30 to try for the 1753.  If the 1718 was that delayed this evening, maybe it also collected some of the normal 1753 crowd?

However, I was still impressed with my introduction to travel on a 150/1!

By the way, the 1530 from Paddington was canned altogether yesterday, 'due to an earlier train fault' according to the FGW website.

Yeah bit silly cancelling that 15:30 yesterday.

142s  ;)

Suppose you are right.
They dont have individual seats so you could make it out to be 2+3 2+2 or 2+1.
But they probabaly wont be seen in Bristol.

142064 has marking on the seat to show where the 3+2 seats are.

Thought most Thames Turbo were 3+2, but being wider stock it's not such an issue.

A few weeks ago I was on a very tatty ex-Alphaline 158 from Warminster to Bath and from Westbury onwards the carriage was jam-packed because of a cancelled Bristol PWay service, all the carriage lights kept going on and off, and the train rattled and juddered from side to side every time it accellerated. We were 20 minutes late too. It's safe to say I wasn't feeling too well at the end of that journey!

Whitnessed that last week on a HST.
Some stupid girls had discovered the Carriage light buttons in the vestible and were having great fun turning them on and off much to the annoyance of the passengers.

... and what did the train manager do about such anti-social behaviour?

He didn't see it. It was in Carriage E and as we were in Cornwall he was in A/B/C operating SDO.