Great Western Coffee Shop

Just had a most interesting run  to Reading on the 17.45 ex Plymouth which would rival any commuter train in terms of overcrowding when an extra pick up only stop for Glastonbury was made at Castle Cary tonight.

Just wondered what the guidance is to train staff re this sort of overcrowding due to event like this ????

Glastonbury is always a complete and utter riot when it comes to passenger loadings.

Yep roads and rail in that part of the world are best avoided tomorrow. Its like moving the entire population of a large city all at once...chaos or should that say gridlock?

Add in some hot humid weather and getting out of Glastonbury tomorrow will challenge even the calmest of people and those cars who don't have their radiators topped up! I know what I'd do if I was there and thats leave after the show ends on the main stage and travel overnight...if I was travelling by car of course!

I travelled on the 14:59 from Westbury to Frome on Wednesday... That was certainly interesting

I was in First Class having just come from Taunton so I was ok... Then I remembered that Frome has a short platform... Lets just say I'm quite a quiet person who hates large amounts of people... However Getting from H - D was fine until I got to F... Going to D I had to resort to the Brute Force and Ignorance method to get off ::)

Conclusion... Too many people for one train... Next year trout avoid the 14:59 :-\

I was on the 9:06 this morning from Paddington to Tiverton Parkway (was actually booked on a later train but changed to the earlier one).

The train was a few minutes late leaving Reading for reasons unknown and all went smoothly until just outside Castle Cary when we crawled to a stop... and sat there for what must've been around 15 mins, all down to extra trains at Castle Cary (our train was not scheduled to stop there, so we ended up getting into TVP late... and then, to top that all off, the bus I was due to catch at TVP never turned up as it had broken down. Saw a few mud clad teens/twenty-somethings with wellington boots on at TVP as well, you'd think they'd just come from the local farmers market!

I'm pleased to say that the only overcrowding I experienced today was on the 08:03 Greenford to Paddington service at Acton Main Line, but then that's not unusual!

in answer to your question the train crew decide if it is safe to run,if they deem it unsafe the have the right to refuse to work it.
as far as the company are concerned it is safer to be fully loaded up as people do not get thrown around in the event of an accident (or so i am led to beleive)