Second week - Thursday 22 December

Last day for a week! :-)

Went for the 0642 today and all was well until we got to Swindon. The 0718 was 'delayed' and anyone who commutes by train know that this spells doom. It's so bad that they cannot admit to how many minutes late it is! So we jumped on the 0724 and arrived at Swindon for 0740, with a pleasant amount of minutes to wait until the 0754. I am glad DT did not catch the 0612 and tried to get the 0726 from Didcot as the 0726 was cancelled.

Left work at 1300 to catch the 1321. I know it's a daft idea as there is only a 5 min connection time, but if that one's is cancelled I can get to Swindon, where they have comfy seats....

The 1321 left 2 mins late and arrived at Didcot at 1338. Yippee, I thought, I can make the connection today. But as I neared the display screen on platform 1, that familiar glowing blue line surrounded the words Bristol Temple Meads. Poohey, it's cancelled. Apparently, it was due to a broken rail in the Southall area.

OK, that means a wait until the 1356 to Swansea, which will take me to Swindon (comfy seats) and then on to another train, which will go to Bath (but bypasses Didcot). As DW says 'Just keep moving'.

I had 14 mins to wait at Didcot so I thought I'd put it to good use: find station manager ask for help with connecting trains. I carried my 10kg Brompton back over to platform 2 to speak with the station manager and she was her usual nice self. She's been very helpful to us in the past and always smiles. I explained the problem, she said she have a think and try to see what she could do. It was nice talking to her, it's a shame her staff aren't as nice.

Back over the platform 1 and who should I see but Didcot-Steve. Steve does Bath-Didcot every day. We had a mini chuckle of the state of the trains today (I also saw him this morning), and then we got on to the heaving 1356 to Swindon.

At Swindon we were told that the 1426 was delayed by 1o mins (at least they could admit it this time though!), so we waited, and chuckled some more. Eventaully, the train arrived and we got on and found some seats. Journey took a bit longer than normal as, the train manager explained 'we have a technical problem with the front power car, so we'll be going slower at 95 mph'. (Not at 125 I guess?)

Arrived into Bath at 1510 - in time for some Xmas shopping.

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Journey to work/meeting punctuality: 78%, 7/9
Journey home punctuality: 78%, 7/9

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FGW alerts:
0710 BRI-PAD cancelled. Minor delays on all services into PAD before 0700 due to overrun engineering works in Acton area.
Cancelled: 1522 Pad-Oxford, 1635 Cheltenham-Pad, 1638 Oxford-PAd, 1705 Oxford-Pad.
No further major probs.