Sir.-This is the story of a day in the life of a South West Trains Goldcard customer last Friday.

After rushing to get to Basingstoke station, my usual 8.31am train was not displayed on the information board at all and the next one was delayed.

Another passenger went to ask in the information office and they told him that the 8.31am was coming but it was half the length as normal and was standing room only - no announcement at all was made.

About 8.35am, the information board changed, just to announce "Stand clear", as the next train at that platform would not be stopping.

However, it did stop to let people off. Recognising it was my usual train and seeing that it was not as full as expected, I took up a position to get on.

As I did this, a guard suddenly appeared and become very animated, telling me that the train would not be picking passengers up. Someone behind me asked where the train was going, to which he replied "Nowhere".

It was still a very full train, so either the train was going to keep going on and never let these people off or "Nowhere" was a new station that had been built somewhere just before London Waterloo!

Anyway, there was only one guard on the platform, so I ran down to the front end of the train and got on there! As I did, there was general bemusement at the situation and I persuaded a couple of people I knew to also get on.

After all that, I managed to find a seat and the train was no less packed than usual.

When I got off, I recognised a couple of people who had managed to get on at the end carriage - it would have been interesting to see how they eluded the guard!

-Name and address supplied.