8 replies to this topic

[icedgems]

I got up at 4.30am (woke up naturally, weird!), packed up, walked to the other end of the site and I was at the shuttle bus queue by 5.45 ish.
Waited about half an hour to get on a shuttle bus.
Took about 15 mins on the bus to the station - no traffic on the route the bus took.
Was at the station by half 6. Efficient queuing system and ticket checking - and in the most part helpful and fair staff, although a little confusion about off peak tickets (which most people have).

Got on the 7.41 to Bristol Temple Meads (via Taunton). Then at Bristol took the first off peak train to London which got me to Paddington at 11.15. Got a seat on both those trains.

All in all, pretty pleased with that. Only annoying thing was watching empty ("peak") trains pass through with only the odd commuter in a suit getting on whilst everyone else was penned in waiting for "off peak" to start. But I guess those that wanted to had the opportunity to upgrade so it's about what price you're willing to pay.

How did those who left later on get on?

[darkfish]

Got to the queues at 9.30 ish. Half hour queue for the shuttle buses, then 20 mins at the other end to unload. Then it went downhill...

They weren't letting people for Bristol or anywhere further north onto the London train, as we did last year. So instead of going to the next station and changing, we all had to cram onto the 2 carriage stopping service over an hour later. (I say all, nowhere near all the queue) This then caused havoc at all stations to Bath, as nobody else could fit on at the stations it stopped at, and being a 2 hourly service a lot of people got quite irate. Anyway finally got in 15 minutes late, which would have been 40 if it didn't have a planed wait at temple meads.

So all in all, satisfied with Glastonbury's arrangements but not at all with Great Western.

Edited by darkfish, 28 June 2010 - 03:36 PM.

[Kaybee]

Had totally different experience to Darkfish.  I was travelling to Bristol and got on the "Glastonbury Special" at about 1115 ish, having only waited about 15 mins at Castle Cary (quite a long wait queuing on bus to get onto station though).  Train wasn't full, loads of spare seats and lovely atmosphere.  First Great Western couldn't have done a better job so far as I was concerned.  Maybe I just got lucky.

[YetAnotherOldHippy]

Got to the shuttle bus point well before 6am and they were running double deckers to Templemeads, presumably to remove a large section of the travelling public from Castle Cary station.

Was this cancelled later on? It seemed quite a sensible idea to me.

[mr_monkey]

not a happy panda.... got up at 6 and got to castle cary at about 8:30... missed the 10:17 (ish) train to Exeter by about 30 people and was then told that the next train to exeter was at 12:37!!!!!!!!!!

There were about 40 of us who were in this situation and we were put under the shade which was good and told we could catch a packed train to Bristol at about 11 and change to Taunton and then to Exeter but it would get us back about 10 min earler that then the 12:37 one.

All in all a bit of a nightmare and i dont understand why more trains were put on for people going to london and bristol but more weren't for Taunton, exeter plymouth etc when it seemed to me that most people who lived in these places had caught the train as it was easier as they lived closer.

Must praise the guy with the mike headset at the station tho, he was a complete gem....

will be driving next year.

[icedgems]

eek! Glad I got up early then hope everyone's home by now.... just woke up from possibly the best nap in my life.

[johnmcga]

No real problems here - it was much the same as in 2008 and 2009 (and both were a vast improvement on 2007!).

We got up about 8am, packed up, left the campsite about 9.30. Queued for about an hour and a half for the shuttle bus, got to the station and was on a train about 20 / 30 minutes later to Reading. Good organisation on site and at the station - the stewards were all friendly and handing out water, which helped.

[fantomas]

left site at 3:30pm, no queue, straight onto bus and straight onto a london train after 20mins or so.

thought a couple of the station staff were rude though.

Edited by fantomas, 28 June 2010 - 11:25 PM.

[mikeb]

Anyone leaving the site after around 0400 ... owes a MASSIVE debt of gratitude to the coach/bus drivers who, for want of a better word, mutinied and basically refused to follow instructions from the stewards and or Security/Police who were allegedly running the show !

When the first batch of 5 buses got back to the site at around 0330, the drivers were all told that they couldn't take any more peeps to Castle Cary until the queues there had cleared completely.  A mere 250 peeps at most at the station yet it was being claimed that the station was overloaded so no more peeps were to be taken until those peeps already there had got on trains. 5 empty buses just sat there and several hundred peeps with valid tix for the early trains waiting to get on them but with absolutely no chance of getting to the station on time where they would have been able to get almost straight on the trains.  The vast majority of peeps at the station were going to be held until 0900 as they didn't have the right tix for the early trains and were therefore preventing those who did from even getting to the station   After a somewhat heated discussion with the stewards plus a bunch of security 'heavies' arriving by Landrover, the drivers announced to all those waiting that they WOULD be loading up and taking peeps to the station no matter what was being said by anyone else   Cue lots of very happy peeps boarding buses and ultimately getting their train home.

Without the drivers mutiny, not only would things have gone *very* t*ts up very early on but there would likely have been a near riot I think !  Hopefully me having my usual strong word with the FGW guys also helped a bit as there was the usual stupidity at the station first thing and plenty of misinformation being given to some peeps - esp to those who could legitimately have got on early London-bound trains and changed en-route (providing there was room for them of course, which there was) but they were being prevented from doing so. Unfortunately, FGW's main aim is not to get peeps on trains but to make money - their primary effort is in checking tickets and preventing peeps from travelling on trains using tix that they haven't paid enough for ! Fair enough and all that but certainly NOT at the expense of those who have got the right tix.  A large number of peeps (~1000 I would guess) were queued up outside the station by around 0500 (ish) but despite many of them having the right tix they'd all been sent to the wrong queue so that plus a complete lack of tannoy announcements ultimately meant they were not even aware of never mind allowed to get on the trains they had booked and paid for so would consequently miss connections etc. for other services on their journeys.  The trains they should have been on arrived (and needless to say left) pretty much empty

I'm defo going to be writing to FGW and GFL this year because whilst the arrangements and organisation is in generally always very good, it could and SHOULD be better.  I'm not talking about a whiny complaint here as I personally had no problems because I knew the score and knew when I was being given duff info, I'm talking about 100% constructive criticism because having travelled by train for the best part of 10 years now, I know from past experience that each year has actually got slightly worse not better.  The system used in 2002 (for instance) was significantly better than that used in all subsequent years as it fed peeps from the site to the station based on the trains they needed to get. Simply shifting peeps off the site willy-nilly is crazy because it just stuffs the station with loads of peeps who will not be allowed to get on trains for several hours !  They should be queued on site as used to be the case therefore keeping the station queues for those with valid tix who WILL be travelling imminently.  Partially pre-sorting peeps at the site means that the right number of peeps for the right trains get delivered to the station at the right time thus making everyone's lives a lot easier and much less stressful The poor FGW guys/girls at the sharp end were getting quite a lot of grief from many tired/grumpy punters first thing and it really wasn't their fault, it was down to whoever is responsible for planning the overall arrangements, not those at the station at the time simply trying to do their jobs

Edited by mikeb, 29 June 2010 - 03:30 PM.