Travelling into Kent from Bath in the early nineties, I seem to recall that BR▸ imposed an evening peak restriction for tickets leaving Bath Spa, which led to an immediate modal switch from rail to road for that journey.
It can't just have been me as that particular evening peak restriction quickly evaporated, thankfully and it was back to the train - including a particularly timely service that came up from further west, left Bath at 16:10, stopped at Reading only, and, I also think I recall, took 1 hour ten minutes up to Paddington.
Something I definitely recall was around 1990, stepping aboard a morning HST▸ at Paddington on the return half of an off-peak ticket and finding that for a (reasonable) additional charge, an at-seat full english breakfast was available to standard class passengers.
After sitting down at an unoccupied table-for-four bay, a couple sat down in the other pair of seats, they were from Essex and were making the trip at short notice and were ticketless. They bought full price return travel tickets from the train manager, not batting an eyelid at the cost of those which was considerably more than the cost of my off-peak. After which, away we all went to the West, in the company of each other, tea, and a well presented fry-up.
Mark
Sounds like the
West Country Pullman which ran from May 1988 until the early 90s between London and Paignton leaving I think around mid morning with the first stop Bath. The return, to begin with, used to run non stop Bath to London around 4pm.
As time went by, more and more stops were added, the Pullman name, along with the restaurant, dropped and it became just another regular service.
Today, the morning London to Paignton and return runs via Berks & Hants and, until recently ran under the
The Torbay Express name.
Without wishing to derail the thread, anyone know why
GWR▸ decided to drop naming certain train services?
