Sharp Words

It has been one of those days.

The first train I waited for at Birchwood was cancelled - points failure apparently. So I caught the next one after a wait of 30 minutes. It got to near Deansgate station in Manchester, but nowhere near a platform, and just stopped. Various announcements from the conductor who kept us informed of what was happening - a train ahead had broken down at the station, maintenance crews would deal with it, repeated promises thanking us for our patience and we would be moving soon. But then an announcement that the train would head back to Warrington Central. It stopped at Trafford Park to let people off who wanted to be let off, but there was no point in me doing that. I asked if it would let me off at Birchwood, no was the answer. I couldn’t catch a train from Warrington Central to Birchwood because the whole system was paralysed. So I walked to the bus station and used my bus pass for the first time. The bus took a circuitous route back to near home. So from door to door I spent 3-4 hours going precisely nowhere. I expect delays and cancellations (sadly I’ve found this is the norm travelling by rail to and from Manchester), but this was way beyond all of that. No-one complained or got angry, just a stoical acceptance (on the surface at least) that this is how things are.,

The image is out of the window at Irlam station, heading towards but not quite arriving at Manchester.