The station I went to did not have the computers working and the person on duty wasn't sure whether his mobile machine would issue me a ticket. As it happens it did, at the advance price as well, was this correct? but it would not issue the concessionary rate for the AVR part so they had to pay the same as me ú9. (Note to any AVR members to get this looked at maybe?)
The train from Weston S Mare was a two car unit standing room only and the Westbury train from BTM was jammed solid. Not an attractive way to encourage people to give up the car, go green etc etc.
On arrival at Keynsham the roadworks on the bridge over the Avon were obviously holding up the bus service but we arrived in time for the 11:14 departure at Bitton to Oldland Common. Two Bristol REs and an MW provided the bus link to and from Cadburys at Keynsham.
The booking office staff were not aware of the railways offer of a FREE timetable to paying passengers and they insisted it was ú2, eventually changing their minds, they also had never seen an inclusive FGW ticket before which caused them and the ticket inspectors on the train, some added interest!
It was apparent that there had been a serious issue with the points at Bitton so the Black 5 and Jessie were stuck on the Riverside section with the other locos running between Bitton and Oldland Common.
When they reopened the line across Bitton bridge, the train went straight through Bitton to Riverside. There the Black 5 was attached and on the return it went straight through again to the obvious annoyment to passengers waiting on the platform for some time, even though a Pines Express had been time tabled around the same time to do exactly this.
Of course, those of us on the train actually had a bonus with the non stop and non jerky, haulage of a main line type loco, so no complaints from us
To be honest, there was a lot of confusion and bad information given out over the PA system. Telling passengers that the train "may..or may not stop" was pretty poor PR. The comments I heard from many other passengers, most of which were the "family day trip" variety were not good.
I appreciate that the points incident was a one off, I wonder what caused it? There seemed to be a broken lever and the PW staff were working on the point levers for the rest of the day, digging out holes for concrete bases to go in which in fact did provide some addded attraction to the visitors.
The highlight for me was the Black 5 non stop Riverside to Oldland Common and a total of five engines in steam.
The catering was also to be reccomended.
