pimlico plumbers and passports

Commuters into Waterloo may recognise the advertisement.

It's strategically placed along a stretch of track where the trains stop most days whilst the points and signals are flipped to free up platforms at the main terminus.

It's a plumbing company, and stands out against the mainly corporate advertising all along these tracks. There are firms who launch new cars, software or financial services who will take several stations worth of signage to advertise their wares. Audi R8. Mercedes New E Class. Oracle 11g Release 2. Salesforce Summer '13. Henderson Global Investors. And...Pimlico Plumbers.

The passengers sitting at the big tables usually start their packing up rituals around here. They will have laptops demarcating their claim to desk space in the carriage. Sometimes they'll be working, but mostly the tell tale flicker of a disk light and the plugged in headset shows that they are watching a movie.

If I'm on one of these trains I usually take one of the more airline type seats, with a small tray table. A window seat. I don't mind the extra 15 seconds that a window seat might cost me at the end of the journey.

Others will sit in the aisle seats to get a pole position to leave the train. Or maybe it's in the vague hope that they can get two seats instead of one.

So, for many, this morning sighting of Pimlico marks the end of their inbound commute.