Day 5 - Day Out to London, Friday 15 December

For those of you who have been following this blog, I first have to apologise for the delay in posting Friday's news. I temporarily came to a grinding halt...sounds familiar? You'll be glad to hear that I have not had any technical difficulties; my driver is not sick; I do not have a rear car power failure; and the last time I looked, my points were working.

I bit of a reprieve from the usual today, a day out to London. I was starting to worry, again, that there'd be nothing to say, but far from it! The excitement started before I had even boarded the train. My season ticket took me from Bath to Didcot, but then I needed another ticket to take me from Didcot to London. However, according to the nice chappy at Didcot ticket office, I should really catch a train from Bath that actually stopped at Didcot. 'mmm, that means that my choices were severely reduced. OK, how about I get a ticket from Swindon to London?', I asked. 'That'll be £90', he said. '£90? How much from Didcot?', I asked, '£40', he said. 'Blimey', I said, 'I think I'll get on a train that stops at Didcot'.

So let's analyse this.
Swindon-London, 64 mins, £90 = £1.34 per minute on train
Didcot-London, 47 mins, £40 = £0.85 per minute on train

Why is this? If you know why, could you let me know?

Back to the journey. Train arrived, got there OK. Journey back uneventful apart from noticing that on my return train, which didn't stop at Didcot, only 22 seats of the 40 in my half of the carriage were occupied. Strange that: usually the trains I get on from Didcot are heaving and it's standing room only. Let me know if I have got this wrong, but does that mean that trains that do not stop at Didcot have lots of seats as not as many people are on them, and trains that stop at Didcot are very busy AND OBVIOUSLY POPULAR, with loads of people on them?

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Journey to work/meeting punctuality: 60% (steady on!)
Journey home punctuality: 100%

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FGW alerts:
0710 BRI and 0534 GMV services to PAD are affected by mech. fault, 0600 SWA to PAD service calling additionally at DID.
0710 BRI to PAD cancelled due to earlier mech fault. 0651 WSMto PAD retimed to start at BRI as a result. (They really don't like these people from Somerset, do they?)
Full advertised service. (but then...)
We are expecting some short notice cancellations to services this evening. Please check our website for details.