Transforming Travel

First Group's motto is Transforming Travel. They certainly did this morning. The 0813 from Teignmouth to London Paddington was formed of 2x2 class 150 Sprinter unit instead of the normal High Speed Train. 250 miles fom Paignton to London via Bristol without a buffet and with a draught in your ear. Quite outrageous. And by all accounts it really was going all the way to London, and people were being advised to change at Bristol for a nicer train, even though changing at Exeter or Taunton would have given passengers a better service to London. Would probably have won a prize for the first ever Sprinter to arrive at a London Terminal. Hopefully one of the teenage fascist control-freaks at the Department for Transport might have noticed it as they wandered into work late in the morning and wondered vaguely what us provincials have to put up with. For that matter, maybe a FP would have been better to send to London (the P stands for Pacer, the 4 wheeled rail bus we have to put up with in Devon, the F stands for whatever you want it to but F*cking Pacer seems the most appropriate: try one if you are ever in Devon). I stuck with the London Sprinter as far as Taunton, where I wandered off into the suburbs to suffer through 3 hours of a Regional Assembly Transport Officers Group (motto: why use one word, when 18 words and 3 acronyms will do?) What a way to run a railway.