A Cure for Insomnia

Spent a lot of time today looking at CanCarrier's Wall.

This is going to be a bit of a rambling blip, and trains and train timetables are going to feature heavily so you may be well advised to take the above link and see what CanCarrier's been up to.

If you're really sure you want to read on, settle down for the long haul.

We were catching a train an hour earlier than our normal train today. The 9:54 from Perth to Kings Cross, plus I had to take the car to the garage after dropping Mrs L off at the station so we planned to leave the flat at 9:00. At 9:10 when Mrs L asked me to take the Hoover round I could tell we were in trouble. Finally though, 9:20 we left (in the rain) and I dropped Mrs L off then headed to the garage with the intention of quickly dropping off the car & keys and walking back to the station which I reckoned I still could do in time.

No problem in fact as the man from the garage says I'll give you a lift, it's no weather for walking - what a nice man, although Mrs L looked a trifle perturbed as I drove back into the station car park. She hadn't noticed I had a passenger, although that wasn't her only reason for being perturbed. There'd been a freight train derailment at Inverness and our train was going to be 24 minutes late. Hey ho, never mind we had to wait half an hour for our connection in Newcastle, so we should still be ok.

24 minutes came and went, then an announcement, train delayed 35 minutes.
35 minutes came and went, then an announcement, train delayed 45 minutes.
45 minutes came and went, then an announcement, train delayed 55 minutes.
You're getting the idea now and so was the railway announcer, her next announcements simply said the train was delayed, await further announcements.

While this was all going on Mrs L had got chatting to a lady heading to Kings Cross, eventually after yet another announcement the lady decides to go off to the loo, leaving Mrs L with her suitcase. No sooner had she gone than our platform was changed from 7 to 4, which at least meant I could stop staring at CanCarrier's wall, but left Mrs L with the problem of what to do with the lady's suitcase, plus the train allegedly was going to arrive in the next two minutes.

We trundled the suitcase over to platform 4 and Mrs L went off on a lady hunt and fortunately they were reunited before the train arrived. Guess what - ten minutes later the train still hadn't arrived. Then at the end of the platform it appeared and very very slowly, with the driver hanging out the door (that's todays photo) it made its way down the platform.

We duly got on, took our seats and the train just sat there. Finally it moved, and very very slowly it made its way down the platform, gradually it seemed to pick up a little speed until finally we were properly on our way. There had been flooding just before Perth and the signals were out. Before we'd got on the train had just sat for 75 minutes just outside of Perth and when we finally departed Edinburgh at 13:20 we were just short of two hours behind time.

The train staff were very helpful, obviously any hope of anyone making any connection were gone and they were scouring timetables to offer alternatives. It seemed we'd be lucky and be able to catch the 14:55 from Newcastle which would take us as far as Stevenage and nearly home. Then there was an announcement that they were going to stop the train at additional stations, one of which was Peterborough which although short of Stevenage, would get us to where we could catch a train to our local station.

We debated about whether just to stay on to Peterborough, or whether to get off at Newcastle and catch the train to Stevenage. We decided it was better to go with the devil you know and come Newcastle we stayed on hoping that as the train was so late nobody would get on with reservations for our seats. Unfortunately loads of people got on at Newcastle. Firstly a couple that had one of our two seats, but they were quite happy just to sit at the two spare seats at our table, then another couple who weren't quite so happy and although we knew we had to move the aisles were full and we basically couldn't move. So the other couple went off and we started to gather our stuff.

Then chatting to couple number one the penny dropped as to why so many people were getting on this two hour late train - they'd turned our train into the 14:55 from Newcastle. An announcement then came over to that effect and also that there were therefore no seat reservations on this train. The other couple had found seats further down the carriage so we were able to stay in our seats and with the added benefit of being able to stay on all the way to Stevenage. I wonder what would have happened if we'd decided to get off at Newcastle to catch the 14:55!

Arriving in Stevenage our local train was there within two minutes which actually meant that we arrived exactly an hour late, having "picked up" an hour by not having to change trains. So in the end we weren't too badly off, plus with East Coast's Delay Repay scheme we'll get half our fare back too.

An interesting journey don't you think reader? The sort of blip one should bookmark and reread - a guaranteed cure for insomnia. Don't say you weren't warned!