As I stated. My ticket is not bought from fgw so I do not get this. That it the point I was making about the distinction between passenger and customer. I am not wrong.

Anything that puts a stop to fgw's monopoly has to be a good thing.

World class!

There is a very big difference between 'passenger' and 'customer'.
I have been told be fgw that I am no longer their customer and only their passenger because my employer buys my ticket through RBT (which is part of south eastern trains). This is how they have decided to do it. It means that I am not entitled to any fge special offers for season ticket holders. (Not that there are any). They don't care about passengers/customers.

The station staff at Reading are good at being impolite or rude.

I'm glad that someone else recognises that their contract for travel is with the transport undertaking and not Network Rail.
And I agree with fgw starting from rock bottom. Are we supposed to be happy that they are trying to work towards a better service - a position that they should already be in.
The only thing that they have got better at is getting more money out of the passengers. My journey to work has been made worse, because of the train before mine that doesn't stop at Didcot or Reading. It forces passengers to get later trains or change at Swindon, making my train more crowded.

First class should be abolished so that there can be more standard class carriages. More seats for fare paying passengers. A lot of the people who travel in first class are ex-br staff with free travel and/or their partners.

If anyone is killed or injured it will be blamed on Network Rail for failing to take sufficient action. It won't matter who is really at fault!

In the December 2009 timetable a train from Swansea was altered to cut out the Didcot and Reading stops (and leaves Swindon ONE whole minute earlier than it did in the May 2009 timetable).
This has made the next two trains from Swindon busier as those travelling to Didcot, Reading and connecting stations have to get those. (The 08:11 which is from WSM, and the 08:28 which is another Swansea). So I think it's a really bad move.

I'm not surprised at the lack of compensation. You were lucky to get an apology. fgw have been quite bad at sharing information, although they have made a few announcements about delays recently, but it's not consistent.
One of my colleagues was on this train. He's a season ticket holder, so the chances of him getting compensation are about as high as getting an integrated railway run in the interests of the passengers.

I don't feel I explained myself very well. I meant I've seen other people argue with toc staff and seen what's happened. I contact their customer services, not go off on a rant. Which is why I had to email about the goldcard before I did my split because one of the staff at Reading refused to issue me a Swindon-Reading goldcard.

I used the Bristol-Oxford service before it was removed. It saved changing trains at Didcot and Oxford to go to Crewe. This service was often cancelled though for any reason, snow in Inverness would cancel this train.

I'm all for more stops at Didcot because I've got split season tickets.

From what I understand:
Swindon - Didcot was an intercity fare.
Didcot - Reading was a Network South East fare.
I assume Swindon - Reading was an intercity fare.

Despite BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) being dead, everything is still based on it.

I use the ticket machines to pick up tickets that I've ordered online. On some occasions they haven't worked the ticket barriers.

The annyoing thing that I find is that there is a screen that is obscured by another message telling me to collect all of my tickets. This other screen looks like something that is telling me when my tickets are valid/not valid. Extremely helpful???
(This happens when collecting or buying tickets).

I have to commute to work, but I try not to travel for leisure (unless it's on my season tickets' route). I also can't encourage other people to travel by train. If there's a group it's often cheaper and more convenient to drive.
Apart from congestion charging there aren't really many peak or off peak driving costs (well there's the cost of possibly being stuck in traffic).
The problem with rail fares is that people are paying them. Unless the public votes with their feet, the tocs have no incentives to reduce fares (those that they have control over).