Great Western Coffee Shop

In Bath this morning - Westbury for that launch we were talking about just after lunch time.    Nothing special about the journey - except the little niggles on the passenger experience which always leave me wondering "why"

1. Walk in to the door labelled "Ticket Office" to a sign in front of you pointing left to the ticket office.   Except there's a barrier there labelled "no entry" and what you have to do is turn right and then curl round behind a pillar

2.Queue to buy tickets ... and even though there are four ticket window, two have the blinds down and the two in action are taking so long that you feel the purchase must be excpetionally complex.   Who would have guessed - two exceptional queries at the same time?

3. Giving up, I pick my way past barriers to the TVM. "Westbury" not on the quick purchase screen, even though it's the nineth most sold destination from Bath. so I start typing in the name ...

4. W - E - S - T - and I am being offered all sorts of places like West Allerton and West Dulwich (both not exactly common journeys from Bath) and only when I press the B does it offer Westbury.

5. Single or return, and it offers me any time day return, off peak day return and first class off peak day return.  Now all the peak trains have left already, there are no first class trains any longer.  So why even offer those fares?

6. I selected my fare, added my senior card having discovered that the "+" button below "add a railcard" was actually about adding a passenger, and that I had to poke the screen actually on the words

7. Two touch sensitive car readers (help - which do I use).  Tried the first one and it didn't work, second one bleeped.

8. Another screen above a PIN machine said "approved"; good job I was not watching for it on the main screen. That second screen at a low level and set back - had to stoop to see it at all.  Good job I was on the lookout for it.

Purchasing a Bath to Westbury ticket?  Simples!

On the subject of Bath Spa station, anyone know why the lift to the up platform can suddenly only carry two people? (Formerly, eleven...)

Mark

Oh for the days when those two exceptional queries would have been dealt with in the excellent* travel centre at Bath Spa leaving the ticket windows for ‘today’ purchases. But hey this is progress isn’t it?

*It wasn’t so excellent towards the end of its life being often closed due to ‘staff shortages’.

There has been an ongoing problem where the lift fails intermittently if greater numbers use it.  Apparently it needs some new parts which are proving hard, if not impossible, to obtain.  The new temporary limit was four. Not sure when it was reduced to two.

Yesterday afternoon the lift had just failed completely, with passengers needing it directed to the one in what was 'Graze'.

Mark