Great Western Coffee Shop

Work day out in London yesterday but didn't need to be there until lunchtime so booked myself on the 0957 from EXD. It was obvious what was going to happen as a PA message instructed all passengers with heavy/large luggage to proceed to the 'rear' of platform 5 so their goodies could be loaded into the power car. Excellent planning I thought. P5 was absolutely packed with the usual Friday crowd plus significant numbers of people heading for the Take That concert and a few large school parties. I had to turf a passenger from further west out of my seat in Coach A. I understand that the entire of standard class was full & standing all the way to Paddington and it looked as though some passengers (without reservations?) were denied boarding at both TVP & TAU. Under the circumstances a 10 minute late arrival at PAD was pretty good going.

Always a busy train, stopping at Westbury doesn't help since that provides plenty of connection opportunites. (plus it's the first off peak train out of Devon)

It's an interesting reflection on how the rail network and its services currently operate if we are talking about a stop that provides plenty of connection opportunities not being a helpful thing  ;D

I think it's rather subjective though - I personally love the fact that it stops at Westbury since if I needed to go to Uni from Devon if staying with relatives it is a quicker option.

Meanwhile if say travelling from St Erth to Paddington in the ideal world you would only stop at Paddington  ;) (reminds me of a certain 4 wheeled device commonly known as the car)