Did you show your rail ticket this morning? If you were travelling on First Great Western, I hope not. Maybe you went a step farther and refused to pay. Perhaps you presented the train manager with one of the “cattle-class” tickets that were issued by campaigners.

Good for you. Talking to the rail operator is getting nowhere. Overcrowding, delays and ever rising fares have left passengers with no option but direct action. It’s time to leap over the ticket barriers, burn our rail passes and send a message that the misery must end.

This is a day of mass protest on the railways in the West Country. The main operator, First Great Western (better known as Late Worst Western or even Sh*te Great Western), seems to have reverted to the post-Hatfield meltdown that all but paralysed the network a few years ago — only this time it is self-inflicted.

Among its more bizarre actions, FGW has removed a carriage from most of its intercity trains, disposed of 20 per cent of its rolling stock, extended journey times, increased fares and ravaged suburban services. At essential commuter stations, such as Oldfield Park and Keynsham, passengers are physically unable to board.

Every commuter has a tale of woe. As well as the missing carriage, my own beef centres on the lengthened evening journey time from London to Bath. A few years ago it was scheduled to take 85 minutes; today it is 105. But the train goes no slower; instead, the 21.45 from Paddington pulls into Reading at the same time as previously, but now a train manager proudly announces our “early arrival” — and we wait 20 minutes. Who are these silly people at FGW? We’ve not arrived early; they’ve simply moved the goalposts in order to meet their targets.

And what was FGW’s next trick? It removed the cheap tickets from this, my regular service (yes, I’m one of the fortunate ones who doesn’t pay an eye-watering £121 to travel just 100 miles and back). Bastards.

What about turnround times? Most of us accept that genuine delays do occur. But with scheduled turnround times at Paddington often barely more than 15 minutes, an inbound train arriving just a few minutes late is going to affect the outgoing service.

FGW’s answer to all this? The company is to “rebrand” its buffet “in response to customer feedback”. For rebrand read take out a carriage, put on a trolley and reprice — upwards. Will the customer who gave feedback to say that he or she wanted ground coffee instead of instant please own up? Hot and wet will do; just get my train running properly and with a seat. Oh, and I don’t need the £200 million leather ones either. Any old seat will do.

Let the train take the strain? If only. As the campaign group says, what’s needed is more trains, less strain.