GWR - Record Breaker?

I'm not sure if there is a record for the most misleading train announcements in the shortest possible time (or something) but I offer today's debacle at Bristol Temple Meads as a standard bearer for confusion.

We arrived in good time to catch the 12.26 to Nailsea.

The departure board was saying that the train was expected 6 minutes late. From 12.32 onwards these are the verbatim announcements:

12.32 The next train to arrive at Platform 10 will be the 12.26 to Taunton (our train), calling at... This train has two coaches.

12.33 The next train to arrive at Platform 10 will be the... (announcement cut off)

12.34 A train arrives from the wrong direction with four coaches

12.34 We apologise that the 12.26 service from Cardiff Central (our train) is delayed by approximately 8 minutes.

It is now obvious to everyone that the four coach train is preventing our train from reaching the platform and needs to depart.

12.37 We apologise that the 12.26 service from Cardiff Central is delayed by approximately 10 minutes (observant readers will note that at this point the train was already 11 minutes late)

12.39 The next train to arrive at Platform 10 will be the 12.26 to Taunton, calling at... This train has one coach.

12.40 A four coach train arrives. We get on front coach on the basis that if it is a one coach train it will be this one that carries on.

Nothing happens for five minutes.

12.47 It is announced on the train that this train it is not stopping until Worle because of delay. We are encouraged/invited to go to platform 8 for the 12.53 service to Taunton.

We do so. The departure board is showing this train as on time.

12.53 The departure board now shows the train as as 4 minutes late.

12.55 It is announced as 6 minutes late.

12.57 The departure board, which had changed from 12.53 to 12.57, now says 'on time'.

12.58 The deaprture board is now showing as 4 mins late when already 5 minutes late.

12.58 Announced as approaching Platform 8 and comprised of two coaches

Arrives 5 mins late at 12.58

Leaves 6 mins late at 12.59

Announced on train as stopping first at Nailsea

(Panicked looks of people expecting to go to Bedminster and Parsons Street)

There is a corrected announcement

The web-site says that an unusually large number of trains were needing repair at same time.

Design by the Devil

Friend of mine was fond of posing this question, when running a training event for children's leaders in an old church building. How, do you think, would the devil have gone about designing a building for worship and ministry?

He would then suggest that perhaps the seating would have been made rigid and uncomfortable, the heating unreliable and the leader of any event put as far as possible from those engaging with it, maybe even up a flight of steps. If enough separation of leader and led was not established he posited a screen being built between the two to further cut down visibility. I think people got the point.

I revisited this question in a traffic queue recently as I wondered if the very Devil himself had been involved in the Southmead Hospital car-park.

Arriving, an hour or so earlier for a routine visit late afternoon, I had been unable to park not because of a lack of spaces but because the queue to leave prevented anyone from getting in.

On arrival I checked the payment system and saw the costs. I also checked that change was given. I established that I needed to use a payment system at a pay station before trying to exit.

I did my visit.

I got back to the pay station. On the walk stress point 1 reared. Reports had bothered me that 500 yard queues had built up recently because two of the three pay stations had been out of order. There was no queue but then I hit stress point 2. I had to enter my vehicle registration number at the pay station. I don't always recall my current reg although FWK 616L and UOF 247S are etched in my memory, my first two cars. Luckily an appalling obscenity is a good mnemonic for my current registration.

After paying, a message said I was free to leave and had over an hour to do it in. I was issued with no token or ticket.

I drove out, trying to leave appropriate gaps for vehicles entering the car park to get in but (stress point 3) impatient people then overtook me and blocked the gaps.

As the queue reached the exit I saw the cars stopping at a barrier. There was a machine next to it which some people touched and others didn't. Stress point 4 - had I failed to memorise a code or pick up a token?

Getting nearer I found that the machine was simply a 'call' button and that cars seemed to have to wait a while (15 secs) for the barrier to raise. I had to (stress point 5) put my faith in automatic registration plate recognition software. I also (stress point 6) had to be sure I had entered my registration number in the machine correctly. I was sure I had but in the queue the doubts built up. Was there a precise place to stop to make this easier? Who knows. The barrier rose after a brief wait.

Bearing in mind that people trying to leave this car-park are either already stressed because they have been ill and are going home, maybe still uncomfortable, or have been visiting a sick relative and are sad, might I humbly ask if hospital car-park design might be made as easy as possible for those who are in a bad way already.

I have heard of one visitor, catching up with a husband who has just had a serious illness diagnosed, having a complete meltdown and leaving a car on the grass and having to be helped by security and treated by nursing staff. Automated car-parks may well be a false economy. People in trouble want to see people who can help.

Thought for the Day April 24th 2014

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning:

To get from A to B we live in privileged times. Walk, horseback, cycle, drive, bus, train, fly.

In the 1980s Back to the Future movies did you notice? The future anticipated in the second film was set in 2015. Next year. Got your hover-board working yet Steve?

To travel from A to B it depends if you want to enjoy the journey. To go on holiday I will be flying. To get to another city I take the train. To reach the studio in the morning I take the car. To access the centre of Nailsea from home, I walk.

Jesus told his followers, for whom the fastest mode of deliberate travel was horseback, that when they went out to speak of God's Kingdom they should greet no-one on the way. Slows you down, that does. But when welcomed they should accept hospitality and relax. He said he was sending them like lambs amongst wolves, which may have added something to their pace. Anyway West Brom supporters enjoy saying that the Bible tells us to hate the wolves.

Sometimes we just need to get there. Arriving is important. On other occasions we enjoy travelling. Embrace the excursion.

Life is a journey. It has urgent bits and relaxing bits. Don't forget to notice you are travelling. And of course try to know where you are going (beat) ultimately.

How do you get from A to B? Well it seems as if for 350 lucky winners, including Jonathan from the studio here, the quickest way from the top of Park Street to the bottom is going to be by water slide. Faster than Marti's hover-board (beat) as long as they don't obey the traffic lights and do avoid the pot-holes.

Stress

I get pretty stressed about train travel. It is meant to be relaxing but I find a drive along the motorway with Radio on incredibly relaxing.

Today, having gone through the rigmarole of booking online and collecting tickets from the station in order to pop over to Paddington to have lunch with my boys, I found that my train was nine minutes late 'Due to the sheer number of passengers.' A Friday in December off-peak. Who could have predicted?

Then I found that two of us had been reserved the same seat, and as the other person had got on at Exeter I lost. I told the guard whose reaction,'It's computerised, that shouldn't happen' didn't even come close to an apology.

Fifteen minutes late for a short enough time with family as it was and then the Circle Line train I needed was cancelled without explanation.

This relaxing privilege cost £80. My car would have cost about £25 plus tube or four hours Central London parking and congestion charge.

On the way back the train was punctual and packed.

No-one checked my outward ticket at all. I needed the return to get through the barrier at Paddington but it was not checked on the train or on alighting.

Lunch and Tate Britain with my sons was good however.

To err is human but to really get on your tits it takes Network Rail

So I had to take my little black VW Polo hire car back to Enterprise. Good firm, good car and good service by the way. Rather than have someone follow me the easiest thing to do was to drop the car off at 10.00 and take a gentle stroll to Parson Street Station to catch the 10.29 to Nailsea. It is an unstaffed station with no announcements or computer screens although you can press a button to hear news.

The 10.29 was a no show. Button pressing gave us (the four potential passengers) the information that it was 18 minutes late. It didn't show at 10.47 so we pressed again. 28 minutes late was the news this time, not bad for a ten minute journey.

Someone phoned the helpline to be told the next train was the 11.29. The 10.29 had now been cancelled. I made a few calls to ascertain the phone numbers of the people I needed to call to say I was going to be late. This included my builders who had managed, during the short time I was away, to lock themselves out of the house. I told them to get a key from the neighbour, which they did, so if you want to break into my house just ask my neighbour for the key. I think my builders have become well known in my street this last three weeks since few of my co-residents have had their lives undisrupted.

I relaxed to read the paper when a train arrived at 11.02. I asked the conductor if it was going to stop at Nailsea and she replied in the affirmative. I got on and then phoned all the people I had rearranged appointments with to re-rearrange them.

My day is back on schedule, my car quota is down to one, my builders are building in the sun and God is in his heaven. Thank you. I feel better now.

Adventures on a Train

I've been between cars for a week now and the public transport thing has been doing me good. Today I had to get to Abingdon for noon. Abingdon is one of the bigger towns not to have its own station so I opted for Didcot Parkway and a bus.

At Nailsea and Backwell I was in good time and able to help a couple of women who were totally baffled by the ticket machine. They were articulate, intelligent and infrequent travellers. The stumbling blocks were:

1. How to buy more than one ticket. They couldn't find the button although they were probably not looking for the words 'additional passengers.'

2. How to pay. They failed to notice that the card reader has its own screen.

Still, we all survived and the train was punctual. The women alighted at Bath, a place Great Western Rail still calls Bath Spa, and I got to my change at Swindon as expected. The 1056 to Didcot Parkway was showing as 'on time' so all was well. At 1055 the departure board changed to 'delayed' and an announcer slurred his way through the news that there had been a power failure west of Swindon and he would keep us informed. My bus journey to Abingdon had to become a taxi ride.

We were told that the power failure was massive. Someone mentioned a landslide (I love rumours) and another a cable theft. This latter turned out to be true. We were never told how long the delay would be but at 1130ish were informed that a train on Platform 1 would be going to Paddington and stopping at Didcot so a load of us crossed over.

An announcement then told us not to get on the train at Platform 1 because it was out of service and the next train would be in as soon as that one had been moved. Then we were told our train was approaching Platform 3 after all and we all headed back (quite a crowd by now) ending up face-to-face with those who had only slowly responded to the news to change from 3 to 1.

Eventually we all got on and arrived in Didcot only 40 minutes late. A taxi made up some time. Only fifteen minutes late for my appointment.

Apparently it was a wire theft at Wootton Bassett.

I've had a good run of trains recently but my last two journeys have been dreadful.

Signs 2

Observing the strap-lines on large lorries has become a bit of a hobby of late (see previous post). What would once have been a Fowler chilled van is now:

temperature controlled distribution

I felt confident that Eddie Stobart's fleet, kings of truckers with girl names on the front of their rigs, would claim no such nonsense but was devastatingly disappointed to pass one of their vehicles on Saturday. It proudly proclaimed:

trans store logistics

No-one is a delivery driver any more.

Soon window cleaners vans will be offering:

on-site transparent wall cleansing solutions

And the Fire Brigade:

domestic and industrial combustion calming

I used to be a vicar. Now I wonder if people would rather have:

eternity logistics and solutions

Well it's a thought.

Transport in Japan

It's hard to be fully prepared for the east-meets-west experience of Japan. You can read about it but it's so much more.

In this first shot we were sitting in a Costa-like coffee shop in central Tokyo, watching the western-dressed, ethnically mixed passers by, the flashing neon signs mainly in English and the cars driving on the left. We could have been in Regent Street. Go into one of the shops and the quality of the greeting, the tidiness of the place and the appearance of the staff leave you in no doubt this is another world. And that's before anyone opens their mouths to thank you for visiting.

Despite the press suggestion, not everyone wears a face mask in urban Tokyo. About one in twenty do, I'd say. This is less to do with the air quality and more to do with avoiding hay-fever (bad at blossom time). It is also about not spreading germs if you have a cold. It is a courtesy. One of many.

Cars drive on the left because the first batch of Fords delivered to Japan were from the UK not the USA and thus right-hand drive. The sign in this next picture says TOKYO MARATHON 2009.3.22. It is the course Jon and Carys ran.

Public transport is excellent and so there are few cars in the suburbs. Most people get the train or cycle.

Trains are crowded at rush hour and people board them by flinging themselves through closing doors and settling to the floor like retiring stage-divers. Everyone is too polite to criticise and simply shuffles around until there is space. In Japan personal space is smaller than in the UK so two people having a conversation will have their faces much closer together than we are used to. That said, few people talk on trains. Using a mobile phone is frowned upon. Many simply feign sleep. Most passengers had very clean shoes, I noticed. Pride again. Look at how clean this station entrance lobby is.

The announce-ments on an underground train are in crystal-clear American English. For instance 'The next station will be Oji the doors on the right hand side of the train will open.' A computer display over each door tells you the names of the next seven stations or so and the exact time of arrival.

Trains are very punctual and stop exactly so that the doors are alongside platform-marked boarding places. At one point we boarded the 1232 from Kyoto to Tokyo in error when we should have caught the 1229. We were asked, politely, to leave it at the next station and board the correct train. This meant waiting at a station 250 miles down the track for 12 minutes while the slightly slower train we should have boarded caught up with us. Two trains going one 400 mile journey at slightly different paces leaving within three minutes of each other. Both pretty full. Journey time, including change, was 2 hours 45 minutes. Brilliant.

At the mainline stations, armies of immaculately-uniformed cleaning staff come on board and take away litter. At the front of one of the underground trains for one journey I noticed through the glass panelling of the cab that it was incredibly clean and tidy and the driver wore white gloves. No half-eaten pasty or rolled up Sun here.

There was an amazing contrast between the efficiency and tidiness of Narita Airport and Heathrow. On the outward journey our plane failed a security check because a can of drink was found which had not been brought on board by any of the passengers. We all had to disembark again. Delay of one hour and a half. Despite this the service at Narita was perfect. Baggage handlers and maintenance staff were positioned in line at various points around the plane's final resting place to get on with their work. We taxied straight into position despite arriving at a non-scheduled time. A long queue for passport checks was dealt with efficiently and fairly - no guessing which queue would go down quickest here. We were in a single queue at the end of which we were escorted personally to the next free position of six or seven. We were finger-printed and photographed and our bags were on the carousel waiting for us by the time we reached it.

Returning to Heathrow we left Narita on time but on arrival had to wait because our stand wasn't free. The queue for passport control was unfair, the checker chewed gum at us (this would appear very rude to a Japanese visitor), the carpets were held together with tape and a coach driver called Scott on the Heathrow to Reading shuttle was extraordinarily rude to a bunch of Americans (first experience of the country? Sorry guys) and then drove like an idiot.

As a contrast to long-haul flights and bullet trains one touristy thing to be done, especially by the natives, is to be made up like a geisha and pulled through the streets on a rickshaw. These two girls in Kyoto were clearly having a ball doing so.

And when you finally shuffle off this mortal eastern coil? Here's the hearse. Some style.

We probably walked more miles in our eleven days than we usually do but they had a zen-like quality as we observed our surroundings. Buses were pretty good too.

Back in the UK a train manager on the reading to Bristol service took some time out to show two bored children a card trick, then phoned ahead on behalf of a stressed customer to find out the platform number for the connection they were going to find it tight to make. We spoke to strangers on the train. It felt good to be home.

By the way there is a lot of Siberia. I looked out every half hour for ten hours and it was still there.

Virgin Trains

Had to go to a meeting in Milton Keynes yesterday. This is a one hour drive. For relaxation and to read/prepare I took the train. Blogging your rail sagas is so dull but it does make you feel better. You need to know that Leamington to Coventry is an 11 minute rail journey but there are no local trains. You catch the train from Bournemouth to Edinburgh and go one stop.

Here's the plan I had:

Walk to station in Leamington
9.11 to Coventry (arrive 9.22)
9.50 to Milton Keynes (arrive 10.22)
Meeting 11.00

Meeting ends 4.00 latest
16.10 to Coventry (arrive 16.44)
17.24 to Leamington Spa (arrive 17.36)
Walk home

Here's reality:

Walk to station in Leamington (successfully achieved)
9.11 to Coventry left at 9.26 (arrived 9.37 - delayed by another train in Banbury)
9.50 to Milton Keynes (arrive 10.22) (punctual)
Meeting 11.00 (happened)

Meeting ends 4.00 latest (overran by fifteen minutes)
17.11 to Coventry (arrive 17.44) (punctual)
18.24 to Leamington Spa (arrive 18.36) (43 minutes late, left at 19.07 arived at 19.25 - delayed by late arriving rolling stock in Edinburgh)
Walk home (successfully accomplished)

Of course if the previous Edinburgh - Bournemouth train had been just a bit late I could have caught that instead of having a 40 minute wait at Coventry already built into the schedule but of course that one had been punctual.

Thank you. I feel better now. Will seek after some truth later.

Trois nuits a Paris

Some good things about Paris:

1. The vistas. The city seems to have been planned and stuck to. Standing outside the Louvre Pyramid you can line up the monument at the Place de la Concorde with the Arc de Triomphe perfectly.

2. Food. Of course. The delight, care and attention which everyone takes over their food is fantastic. A street market just by our hotel was selling the most wondeful array of delightful fresh or prepared things. Seventeen different types of green salad leaves, fresh paella with seafood, pastries sweet and savoury, fruit, fresh or prepared meat. Move it to a street in Britain and someone would have said 'I ain't eating that crap.'

3. The fact that all the sites we wanted to see (Liz had not been to Paris before) were so close together. We did most of the tourist things and walked between them all.

4. Eurostar. Fast and smooth right up to the very edge of Gar du Nor because of the designated line. Punctual.

Some disappointing things.

1. Eurostar. Slower in Kent. Very slow though London.

2. As ever so frustrating that our attempts to speak French are countered by French people bursting into English at the first hint of our accents.

3. Salt. Hadn't really noticed before but even restaurants in England have cut down on salt. We use very little in our home-cooking these days, sacrificing a little of bringing out the flavour on the altar of a healthier life-style. Our restaurant meals had to be accompanied by a litre of water each.

4. Dog-pooh. Everywhere. They wash the streets over-night and it's back by dawn.

5. The price of coffee in cafes. Boy did we get through some Euros.

6. English tourists. So rude.

But Liz had a great birthday weekend away and said it was '...everything she'd hoped it would be.' Hooray. And she didn't catch my cold.

By the way, for those who care, my second cold of the season is on day 12.