Delays

Today was a write-off. PY cooked breakfast, thinking we had to leave an hour before we did. It meant there was no rush. Perhaps it foretold what was to come. The first train we took from Rayenes Park was slow running through to Clapham, which made me nervous about the 12:40pm connection at Euston. The tube is always faster than I recall, so there was no issue. 

Upon arrival at Euston, it was clear things were very wrong. There were crowds of people hanging aorund and no trains moving: there was a signal problem at the station. It's very dispiriting to stand and have no idea what to do. After about half an hour, a few trains were showing as 'preparing' and then were allocated platforms. We might have had a chance if we had planned to travel to Manchester, Edinburgh or Chester. Nothing was showing to Birmingham. I kept checking the apps. At one point, I thought I saw a Birmingham train on a low-numbered platform, so we moved a little closer, but it never came onto the board. 

The announcements could have been more helpful, but the National Rail app said Chiltern Railways would accept our tickets to Birmingham, and we walked to Euston Square to take a tube round to Marylebone. When we arrived, there was an imminent departure to Birmingham Snow Hill, which we went for. PY was a bit frustrated as we didn't wait for the next one and relaxed with coffee first. Few seats were available, but we got two at a table opposite a lady who PY later said couldn't keep her legs still. It was a squash, and the journey to Birmingham took over two hours, considerably longer than the route from Euston.

As we approached Moor Street, I had planned to walk to New Street station to make a connection to Shrewsbury. However, I discovered a following train that could take us to Smethwick to connect to an earlier Shropshire-bound departure, and that's what we did: arriving in Shrewsbury two hours later than planned. We watched the news, and it seemed Euston was still in chaos into the evening. I think we made the right call.