Ashchurch station is small and rural – only slow trains stop here, so you have 2 basic options when heading to Bristol:
- Remain on the slow train that stops at every station en route or
- Change at Cheltenham Spa – just 1 stop and 10 minutes away – onto a faster train.
The beautiful shinkansen-esque GWR train slides into the station on time, its immaculate Brunswick Green livery gleaming in the bright sunshine. We join 2 or 3 others in a peaceful carriage and are promptly underway.
We arrive at Cheltenham Spa and half hop off to check the fast train’s ETA. It’s running 1 minute late so – after a moment’s hesitation leaving a train that’s going where we want – we alight fully. And spend the next 20 minutes watching the fast train’s arrival become increasingly delayed until all speed gains have vanished.
Insult to injury, the CrossCountry train we now step onto is like something out of a post-apocalyptic world where society has broken down. It turns out it’s just come from Birmingham. The toilet door is wide open with a half-naked young woman screaming at her friends who are running rampant along the carriage.
Everything is torn, scuffed and dirty. Speaker-distorted explicit lyrics from 2 or 3 different phones compete with the equally colourful roadman patois that’s being shouted across the aisles.
This InterCity interloper couldn’t be at further odds to the countryside around it.
