Great Western Coffee Shop

Slough tonight - waiting on the 1840 to Pad for about 25 minutes (yes I did get to go home despite my earlier rant, I got lucky)

Was a simon and garfunkle moment as I ........ listened to the sound of silence.

Was amazing - and guess what, no one fell in front of  through train, no one seemed to miss their train, there was no sign of anyone confused over where to go.  Bliss.  Absolute bliss.

may the situation occur more frequently - it was the only the absence of noise that made me realse how noisy it is!

Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas

It's much quieter during the day there now, but that's mostly down to the company building the blocks of flats at the back of the station going bust leaving two horribly incomplete buildings overshadowing the station. Somehow they sum up Slough in a nutshell!

And the fact the tannoy system had been switched off!

On the 1600 Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads train this afternoon, an automated announcement came over what sounded like a different PA system to usual (it had a different introductory bing-bong tone) asking a member of the onboard train crew (presumably this was internded to differentiate them from the train crew travelling on the roof?) to attend "Zone A"

What was that likely to have been about? And where is Zone A? Had someone pulled the help cord in the lavatories or something?

I heard the same thing a month or two ago on a Cross Country HST from Exeter to Bristol. The announcement for a member of train crew to Zone A went on repeating itself until around Taunton when someone finally managed to switch it off. There was a PA apology for it after a while. Personally I'm just glad I had my MP3 player with me...

There is one ex midland main line coach with a disabled toilet in it. If you have seen it you will know what I mean as the toilet looks very different.  When you press the call for aid in the toilet you still get the midland main line announcement "Zone A".  Threw me first time I heard it.