A satisfied customer writes

13 Chestnut Grove
Upper Westwood
Wiltshire
March 2007


FAO: Customer Services Team
Freepost SWB40576
Plymouth
PL4 6ZZ


Dear Customer Services Team,

I am writing to congratulate your company on its ‘Travelling in Time’ First Great Western train experience. This service is a vividly realised recreation of the old diesel locomotive service of the 1950s that serviced now abandoned rural routes. The startlingly accurate post-war period detail really gives the impression that visitors have stepped back in time to a dilapidated public transport system in a ration-book Britain just recovering from the ravages of the Second World War.

I have enjoyed the experience so much that I have made the long, leisurely journey to the south coast a regular part of my week. It gives me plenty of time to enjoy the unspoilt Wiltshire countryside through authentically grime-stained windows, with the train sometimes approaching the speed of a cantering horse. Furthermore, the ugly livery of modern train services is always tastefully obscured by inches of mud so that passengers can more easily imagine themselves in the grey gloom of an earlier industrial age.

The station I travel from is blissfully calm by the river at 6.15am and this morning I appreciated the opportunity to spend an extra twenty-five minutes gazing at the moon through the mist and chatting with a fellow traveller about your famous ‘living museum’ tour service. I notice that the information point has been disconnected to enhance the sensation of returning to a bygone age, (when telephones were still something of a novelty) as the telephone number given to report a fault appears to be disconnected too.

On my return each evening, I also enjoy being crammed into two carriages at Southampton like some child evacuee from the Blitz. It definitely brings out the sense of community in people sadly lacking on other train lines, with Great Western commuters chatting about the novelty and surprises of their daily journeys. Have you ever thought about installing gas lights on your trains? Perhaps you should insist on period dress, or at least provide flat caps and bowlers for commuters to look the part. You could, I imagine, sell the whole package to foreign tourists, who often complain about the vanishing heritage of this country.

I have also enjoyed your steam service (at least I assume it was an early steam engine by the speed of the carriage) travelling up on the Weymouth line. As you know, the original Orient Express still passes along the line to Bristol from time to time, but the terrifying speed of that locomotive alarms many citizens in the West Country more used to the gentler pace of your trains.

Sadly, the Virgin or South West services from Southampton to Bournemouth rudely propels me into the late 20th century on the second leg of my journey. Please do not think of introducing such a vulgar, fast and timely service to the West Country. We have quite enough visitors as it is.

Kind regards,

A passenger