'Exciting ways to teach' ('50 ways with elective modules?)suggests a remodelling exercise for those deadened by stats and mind-numbingly obvious goal-setting ( in lower secondary etc , as`described by my sister. But you're right bbm, networking is the real benefit of these things, especially if the biccies have a hint of fine dining about them. Let's hope hh has a good one.

Yesterday I went down to Devon for the day to see my mother recovering from her hip replacement.  (The carer is using the spare bedroom, so I cannot stay there at the mo.)

I wait on Platform  5 of St David's Station, Exeter for the 1802 to Paddington for nearly forty minutes.  About five minutes before the train is due, there is loud alarm sound, of which no one takes any notice.  A tannoy announcement tells us to ignore it, as the emergency alarm is ringing by mistake.

A minute later a (possibly pre-recorded) message in calm but urgent tones asserts unambiguously that all present must make their way to the front of the station as soon as possible with no delay or panic.

We all gather outside the station, myself wondering that if there was going to be an explosion we would be within the fall-out area.  Smokers smoke.  No staff explain anything.  I see through the station doors the 1802 to London Paddington from Penzance draw into the station and draw out again.

At about 1805 all re-enter the station and I hurry to Platform 5. to find a Customer Service person who tells me without apology that I will have to wait for the next train, ie 1905 to Paddington from the same platform.

I point out that if it was unsafe for us to stay in the station, it would have been unsafe to allow the train to enter it. 

After a call home, I think to check the timetable.  There was indeed another train to London, the 1810 to Waterloo from Platform 1.  It was now 1815 so I had missed it.  The Customer Service bloke could have told me about it as it had not left when we spoke.  As it was I listened to Juan Diego Florez singing Arias for Rubini on my ipod, followed by Callas in I puritani (an opera set in Devon I now realise) until the train got in.

I read Notes from the Underground and listened to Kat'a Kabanova on the journey.

That's a sad but sadly far from atypical tale of the almost systematic crass incompetence for which First Great Western has become notorious. It's up to you, of course, but if I were you I'd get a complaint form, complete it and send it in; in the past you'd usually get a full fare refund for each journey on which they'd delyed you by more than one hour, but I gather that their compensatory régime has recently become rather more generous than this (although I don't have full details). I have been delayed by more than an hour betwen Bath and London on more occasions than I care to recall and I've done this every time, so usually I travel free between those points.

Good luck!

From one who travels on FGW every week, you have my wholehearted sympathies as well, Don Basilio.

A  If the next station was Tiverton Parkway, it is in the middle of nowhere, and the only way back is to wait for the next Penzance train.

B I didn't see if the train stopped.  Probably not.

C Ian - I only travelled beyond Exeter for the first time last summmer, and the line from Totnes to Exeter is the most glorious stretch of rail in England.

D I think tact requires me to edit my piece above.

E  I am I right in thinking that trains and stations are run by different companies now?  The problem was not FGW, but the station staff at St Davids.

 

Or from Plymouth or Paignton - or by taxi, at someone's enormous expense; bear in mind that not all London-bound trains stop at Tiverton Parkway.

Why? What's tactless about it?

That's been correctly answered already but, even had Exeter St. David's been run by National Rail, you were a customer of FGW and are therefore their responsibility because you paid them, not National Rail, for your ticket. I hope you get a full refund (and don't be disappointed if it's only in the form of travel vouchers because, in spite of what I and others have said about FGW, they have been known to run trains on time, so it'll be worth having if ever you plan to make a similar journey again).