A commuter trip to Bath - First Great Western

On Thursday evening I experienced a new commute, Paddington to Bath with First Great Western, as I had a wedding to go to. I had high hopes for this journey, unfortunately it met my usual commuter disappointment!

Already, I get to Paddington ahead of time, to pick up my prebooked ticket. The queue was MASSIVE  (note to Paddington station, get some more effing self-service stations).  Now, I know it was Easter weekend, and maybe I should have arrived earlier - but why the frig should I when I'm paying for a service??!! I was half an hour early, this is largely early enough to print out some pre-booked tickets - or so I thought.

So as I'm standing in the queue, I have to play it tactically - I start talking to the girl next to me, I play the wedding card, I panick, I start heavy breathing. She tells me I can go in front. I move gratefully ahead, still panicking, with 6 minutes to go.  Then I get to next to the front with 3 mins to go, the boy is dithering, about to puts his card in and cancels - I tell him  (yes tell, I definitely didn't ask) that I need to get my ticket! Card in, tickets out (within 20 seconds, watch and learn!) I yell good luck to the girl that let me go in front, thank the boy whom was forced to let me go and ran like the wind. Relieved that I made it, I get to the train, I have a ticket, reserved seat, but I can't even get on the traiiiiin!!! Toooo many people, I try other carriages, but nothing.

My only choice, is first class, I run all the way back, and it's clogged with people at the entrance. I encourage others to go in - as up until this point they are standing outside of First Class - wasting perfectly good space and seats! God forbid that we use seats that aren't being used, just because we have paid for an economy seat!! (see pic!)

We start to filter through, I stick out my belly and pretend to be pregnant. I sit in an empty seat, rub my belly with a little distress, and now I pray that the ticket inspector doesn't come...the gentleman who was working on the train that night was there, but he was very kind to me, and didn't seem to bother him that I didn't have a first class ticket, as that train was so so so busy that there was absolutely no point even having a reserved ticket.  

So I sat and read my free Times newspaper, stuck my belly out until I got bored, and then just accepted that I was going to sit in first class for the rest of the journey.  On the whole, as a first class experience, it wasn’t too bad.  My train was 10 minutes late, but never have I ever seen such a nightmare for getting on a train.  I genuinely thought I was going to miss my train, and I am pretty certain a lot of people did that night.

I just want to know First Great Western, why even bother reserving tickets if I can't even manage to stand! ??

And, should we just get rid of First Class all together?

Makes you grateful for Greater Anglia!

p.s. I know, I am sorry for pretending to be pregnant, if any real pregnant women or old people were around, I would have definitely given up my seat ;-)

p.p.s. If you were that boy buying his ticket to Reading that I forced to stop, I also apologise for holding you up, but I can't deal with ditherers 2 minutes before a train leaves and I'd definitely do it again.