October 5 - ominous silence

I have noticed that the station announcer regales us with a constant stream of inane diatribe until there is a problem and we would actually like to know what is going on. Then silence. Today the announcer told us that there was a good service on all lines. The arrival board nervously displayed 6 minutes to next train and my phone told me that the circle line had been suspended. Great coordination, well done! Ah well, the Metropolitan line to Baker street and then a Bakerloo cattle truck to Paddington, where I watched my connecting train depart without me. 

September 27 - Commuter Broiler - again.

I just missed the Oxford train only to find that the 17:50 was delayed and delayed and delayed. Eventually a replacement service was offered. With cast iron predictability, only 3 carriage were offered up to accommodate 7 carriages worth of passengers. It got warm immediately. Then they sealed us in. By the time the first sop came I has unpleasantly moist. Another memorable First Great Western experience.

September 23 - 07:08 cancelled - what a surprise!

With a predictable inevitability the 07:08 was again cancelled despite the early warning system blithely stating at 06:45 "There are no disruptions reported at this time affecting services between your selected stations Maidenhead to London Paddington." I am now given to arriving in time for the 07:03. So, thank you First Great Western for taking even more time from my day.

September 6 - Rain

Yes, today it rained and the Metropolitan decided to flood. So we all had to decamp at Euston Square and catch the bus. Joy of joys. I honestly believe I could have covered the distance faster on foot. A half hour journey managed to elongate itself into an hour and a half. Still, who could have foreseen rain at the beginning of Autumn?

September 2 - a reply (of sorts)

Thank you for your email of 25 August 2011. I am really sorry for the problems you had on your journey with us from Maidenhead to London Paddington on 23, 24 and 25 August. Our 0708 service was disrupted due to over running rail improvement works on the North Cotswolds line and I apologise for the inconvenience this caused.

Network Rail are ultimately responsible for rail improvement works and they are working hard to renew the track, which is a massive project. So that the least inconvenience is caused to our customers, most of the work takes place through the night. Unfortunately sometimes this can over run, which can disrupt the performance of morning services. This is very frustrating and we are working closely with Network Rail to make sure it doesn't happen.

Where this happens if you held a daily or weekly season ticket you would be due compensation for delays of more the 1 hour. We compensate Season Ticket holders in two ways. A discount on renewal will be applied if we have failed to meet our targets for punctuality or reliability. Also, if our overall performance on any day falls below an unacceptable level we will declare a void day for the charter groups affected and refund the daily ticket cost. As we didn't declare a void day on this occasion, I am afraid no compensation is due.

August 25 - complaint

For the 3rd day in succession I have arrived at the Maidenhead station to find that the 07:08 to Paddington is cancelled for no apprent reason at all. If you do not intend running this service it would be a great deal more efficient to let me know. That way I can leave my home even earlier to get to work. This service was cancelled on August 23, 24 and 25.

You then compound frustration with discomfort by only having 5 carriages on the next train to accomodate 2 train loads of people. I would be very interested to hear your justification for charging me in excess of £3,000 a year for this continued unpleasant experience.

In addition your email alerting service is content to tell me "No known disruption: Maidenhead to London Paddington", which is blatently incorrect.

August 25 - 07:08 cancelled (yet again)

Wouldn't it be simpler just to remove this train from the schedule? What really irks me is that the alternative train is always shortened to 5 carriages. Another unpleasant trip. 3rd complaint letter.

August 24 - 07:08 cancelled (again)

I don't enjoy the challenge of trying to fit a quart into a pint pot. I wonder if this is the shape of things to come. Charge higher fares, supply less trains, all while the government urges us to use public transport in favour of private cars. Hm....

August 23 - missing train (again)

Today we have the 07:08 cancelled once more for no apparent reason forcing two train loads of passengers onto the 07:03. I see a pattern here.

August 18 - Commuter Obstacle Course

First the H&C is cancelled. Quick dodge onto the Metropolitan line. Next halt the train on the wrong platform at Baker Street and allow people out by manually opening only one door making us all go through the connecting doors from carriage to carriage. Dodge onto the Bakerloo line and up into Paddington to find the usual 8 carriage train reduced to three. Add some gentle heat and enjoy the aroma of several hundred perspiring, frustrated commuters all reflecting on the justification of the impending fare increases.

August 4 - Team Work

The silly season is well underway. This morning the 07:08 was scheduled to depart at 07:41, which means that the 07:19 will arrive ahead of it. This is bearable but the underground made up for it by going slightly faster than an arthritic tortoise. I has half an hour late due to this partnership of ineptitude.

August 3 - Commuter Soup

Wait for temperatures to reach 30 degrees. Fill a train of 7 carriages to the brim, then cancel it and offer up a train with only 3 carriages. Seal the doors and pull out into the sun, then stop and allow to boil for 10 minutes. If the train was filled with cattle the train operator would have been fined out of existence. Thank you for the very intimate sauna First Great Western.

July 21 - Coordinated Mahem

First Great Western decided to reschedule the 07:08 to 08:03 today. So I caught the 07:19. However, unthwarted by my nonchalance the H&C decided to make a train break down at Farringdon, very effectively blocking the H&C, Circle and Metropolitan lines. So it was Bakerloo line to Oxford Street, change to the Central line and walk in drizzle from St. Pauls. A really good start to the day.

July 7 - Make 'em sweat

Load 8 carriages to capacity and with 3 minutes to spare, cancel the train and route everyone 9 platforms down the line to a 6 carriage train. Not content with that once they're all nicely squashed together close the doors and wait for 10 minutes while they gently simmer. Serve up in Maidenhead lightly roasted and sweating like over excited pigs. Thank you, First Great Western a trip to remember.

June Summary

After May I foolishly got my hopes up. But in the long play of things I suppose 5 delays isn't that bad.

June 28 - 17:33 to Oxford cancelled

For reasons not adequately explained, I suspect lightning since there was quite a bit of that. Even the 17:50, which was packed to beyond capacity, ran at a snail's pace until well into the journey.

June 23 - Fatality at Southall

I sensed bad news when I encountered a full concourse at Paddington. I can't really blame the rail service for this tragic event. Nevertheless the resultant chaos put everybody about an hour behind.

June 15 - Train cancellation

At last First Great Western are back to their familiar ambivalent, lacklustre ways. First they allow the train to fill to capacity then they announce that it won't be leaving and that a replacement service is on the adjacent platform.... except for those who want to go to Maidenhead. They will have to catch the slow stopping service leaving in 20 minutes. An hour of delay - another letter day.

June 9 - Cancelled 07:08

I arrived at the station to be told that the trusted 07:08 had been cancelled and replaced with the 07:03. Thankfully I was early and had to run to change platforms as the short train filled right to capacity. We all stood in a uncomfortable intimate melee. Notwithstanding that the train was full to capacity one passenger tried vainly to get himself, his fold-up bike, a holdall and his laptop case in.

June 7 - Signal Failure at Moorgate

I knew it was too good to last! Today a 15 minute wait on an ever filling platform at Paddington while the announcer blithely drones on about there being a good service on all underground lines. I wonder what goes on in their minds sometimes or maybe they aren't allow to use their common sense for health and safety reasons.

May Summary

I have no major complaints at all about my travelling in May. When I started this blog I had suffered at the hands of the transport companies for 2 years of weekly and sometimes daily delays, cancellations, strikes and complete indifference. Is this the start of an efficient change of mind?

May 26 - Signal failure at Farringdon

Stop start, stop start. "This service is delayed because there are too many trains on the line". Strange that this did not result in more space. The carriages were packed as usual.

By the way - why on a cloudy day, in an underground tunnel, does this person feel he needs to wear sunglasses? I mean, look at him!

May 11 - Tube timetables?

Hammersmith & City line irony at its best. We stop at Edware Road to be told that the train is running 2 minutes early and we need to wait to leave on time. One stop later on at Baker Street we are told that we have to wait for a Metropolitan line train to cross the tracks and this will make us 2 minutes late.

By the way does anyone else think that the picture shows an inconsiderate and selfish attitude, bearing in mind it's the morning rush hour?

April Summary

Despite some horrendous rail incidents on the London network, including passengers having to walk through tunnels in order to return to stations, none of it affected my journeys. So all in all, a good month.

April 7 - First Great Western delay

Again for no adequately stated reason the 07:08 was delayed, resulting in overcrowded platforms and standing room only on the train. Why do women insist on pushing through a crowded train when it's perfectly obvious that there are no vacant seats?

March Summary

On the whole quite good. The Hammersmith & City line only held me up 3 times and First Great Western only twice. Add to that one traffic jam. So 5 out of 23 or 78% trouble free. My measurement is greatly at odds with the official figures which rank themselves considerably higher. I expected nothing less.

March 30 - another cancellation

Once again I arrived at Maidenhead in plenty of time, only to be met with "the 07:08 to Paddington has been cancelled". To add insult to injury the H&C line decided to do its customary crawl stop, crawl stop act all the way.

March 22 - Cancelled train

Today it's First Great Western's turn to throw gremlins in my weary path. For no given reason the 07:08 was simply marked as cancelled, probably due to lack of interest or attention or the driver's inability to rise out of bed.

March 21 - Hammersmith & City Snail

Today it took me a mere 25 minutes to cover the distance between Maidenhead to Paddington but a staggering 40 minutes to cover the remaining distance to Barbican! Apparently at some undetermined time there were signalling problem in Aldgate. Stop, crawl, stop crawl, all the way.

March 19 - Adding insult to injury

Today I got a letter from First Great Western apologising for all the delays in December and hinting at further delays all the way to 2013. In compensation they gave me 1 (one) return first class ticket. Do they believe that first class gets to the destination any sooner? What use is that to an annual season ticket holder? Do they think I want to travel on their service any more than I have to? Unreal!

March 16 - Traffic

I knew I shouldn't have been so enthusiastic. It was an act of pure optimism. The morning commute went without incident and I even got a seat. On the evening commute I managed to make all the connections and was well ahead only to be brought to complete halt by a broken down lorry on the M4. Oh well, plans, mice and men and all that.

March 14 - The new route

The car journey takes a predictable 15 minutes, the same time that it previously took me to walk to Wargrave station. The 07:08 was late, which meant that I managed to catch this delayed, earlier train and arrive at my end destination a good half hour sooner. There was no seating on the train but the tube yielded me a seat at Farringdon. So far so good.

The return journey worked like a dream too and may well remain as a dream. The evil transport demons probably haven't had time to track me down and throw their gremlins under my path yet.

March 8 - The last journey from Wargrave

Today marks my last journey from Wargrave. A fond goodbye to the regulars I meet on the lone platform Richard, Peter and Ian. On the 14th my trek will start and end at Maidenhead so I anticipate that the journey will be "standing only" by then.

March 3 - Stalled train at Euston Square

Having received a glowing report in February the H&C line promptly reverted to its normal inefficient self. Quite how an electric train stalls is beyond me. Anyway, that was the reason given that the train I was on was stopped at Edgware Road and then having dumped a full load of passengers onto an already overcrowded platform, reversed its course back to Hammersmith. I managed to get onto the second train and play a very intimate version of the game Sardines for the rest of the way to the Barbican.

February Summary

Well, February was a marked improvement on January with only 1 serious delay. Quite an achievement, although I doubt that this will set a trend. My route will change from March onwards as I will be starting my trek from Maidenhead station as opposed to Wargrave. So we'll see how the new schedule works out.

February 25 - More seating!

Where are the hordes that usually crowd my mornings? Once again I got on the H&C train this morning to find it merely half full (or is it half empty?) and plenty of seating. Don't get me wrong this is not a complaint, just confusion. It's not the holiday season, there were no weather warnings, nor any notifications of immanent civil unrest.

February 24 - The ghost train

I was amazed when at the peak of the rush hour a completely empty train stopped at the Barbican. Nervously a few of us stepped on, but more remained on the platform doubting such an appearance could be real. The doors closed, leaving the doubters behind giving us all a seated journey.

February 10 - H&C Cattletrucks

The overcrowding that the commuter suffers would result in a public outcry were it applied to animals in transit. I have tried for many years to see a pattern to the congestion problem but have failed miserably. So today, train after train after train arrived full to danger levels. I sympathise with those poor women whose lack of height places their noses so squarely into the armpits of sweating men.

February 8 - email reply

Thank you for your email of 25 January 2011. I am sorry for the problems you had on your journeys with us from Wargrave and London Paddington on 17 and 21 January. Our 07:17 service arrived 49 minutes late at London Paddington due to an earlier signal problem on 17 January and on 21 January this service arrived 13 minutes late due to a points failure at Maidenhead. I apologise for the inconvenience these delays caused you.

The start of the last period was challenging for us with some frozen and icy conditions. Although we were pleased that we managed to maintain a service through this bad weather, some of our trains were delayed or cancelled. Our service has also been affected by 2 major disruptions recently - some bricks fell on the line from the Sapperton Tunnel and one of our High Speed Trains hit a herd of cows. Both of these things caused considerable delays throughout the day and badly affected our performance.

We are continuing to experience far too many signal and track problems and we are discussing this with Network Rail at a very senior level. Network Rail have put an action plan in place to resolve these problems and have also made some changes to their business helping them to deliver a better service to us and our customers. We will continue to support them with this and we are confident that the improvements they have made in the last few weeks will continue into the New Year.

Despite a recent overall improvement in performance, punctuality in the London and Thames Valley area is just not good enough at the moment. We are working really hard to bring it back to a level that our customers have every right to expect and I am sorry for the inconvenience you have been caused.

February 7 - Moorgate signal failure

Finding the Barbican tube station closed I walked to Moorgate, there to catch an H&C line train. This trundled quite happily to Edgware road where we were told that "This train terminates here". We all join the crowd on the Circle line and wait in intimate proximity. And we wait, resisting the temptation to get more intimate. The train then crawls its way to Paddington where I can just make the Frome connection, only to find out that "this train is out of service". So I finally get on the slow but faithful Henley train. Ironically had the Frome train managed its normally rapid journey to Twyford all would have been in vain as the connecting Henley train had also been taken out of service. Well done guys a real feat of organisation!

February 4 - Good news (sort of)

This morning, not only were both trains on time but there was actually seating available on the H&C line. I was so surprised I had to sit down. So Great Western tried hard to make up for it in the evening by slowing down at Slough just long enough to miss the Wargrave connection. But by some miracle the Henley train was late and so the combination of cock-ups cancelled each other out and all was well in the end.

January Summary

An awful month.

Delays due to First Great Western   4
Delays due to London Transport      5

This month's winner is London Transport. Well done.

January 27 - Signal failure at Moorgate

Today the trusted H&C train came to a halt at Edgware Road and stayed there for 20 minutes. The train doors remained open so that absolutely all warm air was expelled, probably to keep us focused. Then finally the train set off at a brisk walking pace the rest of the way pausing overly long at each and every station like an asthmatic mole trying to recover its breath. Still, we were all very cosy and cuddled together.

January 26 - Delay at Slough, again.

Once again we slowed to a crawl past Slough arriving late for no adequately explained reason. It could be parallel lines on the track, the wrong kind of rain, the wrong kind of wind. But much more likely is the wrong kind of time management!

January 25 - electronic "chase the rabbit"

Having written a complaint on the 17th, today I received a reply requesting details of the complaint despite having supplied those in the original email. I duly replied, restating all the facts as I had done before. I hit the send key and immediately received a reply thanking me for my email and assuring me that they would look at it in five days time! At least their customer service is consistent with their rail timekeeping.

January 21 - Delay at Slough

For no adequately explored reason this morning's train changed from the express lane to the hard shoulder at Slough and crawled like a sniper under fire all the way to Langley. It finally arrived at Paddington 10 minutes late leaving us to join the H&C cattle trucks.

Janury 19 - Moorgate signal failure

Another signal failure at Moorgate left the platforms swelling while full to bursting trains made futile stops unable to take on any more. I took the Metropolitan line to Baker Street where I am delighted to report that the down escalator is finally back in working order.

January 17 - Hayes signal failure

The Great Western cattle truck stopped at Hayes & Harlington for half an hour and then proceeded at a snail's pace the rest of the way to Paddington arriving just short of an hour late. The journey on the H&C was slowed to a crawl also due to signalling failures at Bow. I arrived an hour late rather than 20 minutes early. I raised my 1st complaint to the rail company

January 13 - H&C communication cord

Cattle truck conditions again and to exacerbate matters we halt in the tunnel outside Kings Cross for 20 minutes because some claustrophobe pulled the communication cord. Perhaps they wanted to go from anxiety to panic in one step. Finally at Kings Cross the train has to be emptied so that medics can attend and everybody crams down to the Northern line to stand on dangerously overcrowded platforms. Another great way to start the day.

January 7 - H&C Cattle trucks

Well done Hammersmith & City. 3 trains pull through the Barbican laden like cattle trucks while the announcer tells us "There is a good service on all underground lines". In the end I had to take a Metropolitan line train and change at Baker street, where the down escalators to the Bakerloo line were still out of order.

January 6 - Baker Street stoppage

The Hammersmith and City line came to complete halt at Baker street dumping an entire train load of passengers into Bakerloo line trains. Predictably the Baker Street escalators were out of action and the trains crowded to the point of intimacy. I managed to make all connections despite this.