Today I returned from a weekend of work in the Cotswolds. Nothing arduous and the weather wasn’t so good so no feeling of having missed out on a weekend. Returning to London from Kingham station I took the 12.15. During the day, especially on the weekends, the poor excuse for a train is nothing more than a flimsy three or four carriage bus with a noisy diesel engine. It’s not bad, and in fact an improvement on similar designs of the last 2 decades. But the train, the service, the speed are simply not good enough. The train became over-crowded at Oxford and more so at Didcot, Slough and Reading. People were standing jammed in together and the luggage racks were full. And then the speed – or complete lack of it! I have been taking this line since about 1985 and historically it was a 1 hour 20 to 1 hour 40 journey. Now it takes the best part of two hours. And it costs more than ever. Now I like the idea of life slowing down but not like this. I watched the steam trains at Didcot with envy.
Steam trains at Didcot
