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Two members of the Aston Bond team set off for work this morning, as if it was just a regular commute lasting a short 40 minutes, or so. However, due to signalling failures at Slough, two hours since setting off from their homes they still were not in the comfort of their office chair, instead in the rain at a bus stop in Burnham. The following represents the mornings events:
A mad dash round Reading Station proved fruitless, as trains were simply ‘too full’ to fit any more passengers on, hundreds were left stranded on platforms and in the station. Finally a train bound for London Paddington arrived with space for the hundreds (if not thousands) to get on, amid the madness we managed to board the train.
Things were looking up, until we reached Burnham where the train driver announced that we would not be reaching Slough for a period of time that he could not state. The train sat stationary at Burnham for at least 25 minutes, until we finally decided to get off and catch the bus to Slough, after following advice. As we stood waiting for the bus to arrive, we watched and then panicked as the train decided to pull away! The morning went from bad to worse, and the rain stayed far more consistent than they FGW Trains we regularly use to get to work. A groggy and slow bus ride finally got us to Slough Station.
As we arrived there were hoards of people who likely needed to get to Paddington, but just couldn’t due to the disruption. In that sense we felt lucky, as the people needing to reach London seemed to stand little chance.
A fantastic start to the week!
Joel Chapman, Marketing
Below is a display of people who were in the same boat:
Reading Station = Chaos #Monday #FGW
— Ben Firth (@benfirth) October 6, 2014
https://twitter.com/NeilBassett2/status/519064216545001472
Never seen police called in for crowd control at Reading station @FGW @networkrail Shambolic scenes.
— Zammo (@Zammathon) October 6, 2014
And my personal favourite:
Things to do while stuck at Reading station: ride all the escalators.
— Andrew (@andrewdlindsay) October 6, 2014
