Do you have the time to listen to me whine?

[venta]

Argh. Once upon a time, my ability to break trains was legendary. Lenny, who worked on the platforms at Darlington station, used to ask my parents to warn him when I was coming home, because he knew there would be massive rail disruption that night.

I thought, in recent years, the trains and I had reached an understanding. Apparently not. We are without car at present, and I have been late for a variety of things because of act of train.

Today the plan was: train from Ealing at 10:46, change onto a fast train at Slough, get to Oxford in time to catch the one o'clock bus to Katie's, ready for a Mabel practice at two.

And lo, the gods pointed and laughed, and twiddled with the signals in Langley. I may get to Oxford in time for the two o'clock bus. Or I may not, in which case I will catch the next one and arrive at half three for a practice which finishes at four. Excellent.

On the plus side, when my train finally pulled in I sat down opposite dr_bob and we had a nice hour-and-a-quarter chat during our twenty-minute journey.

Comments

[lathany.livejournal.com]

That is grim. Although I've noticed that trains are more likely to be broken at the weekend. Perhaps because late commuters can be really scary.

[venta.livejournal.com]

My train eventually lost the will and terminated at Didcot. Now on a new train to Oxford which is absolutely packed. At least it's warm :)

[deborahw37.livejournal.com]

Oh how infuriating!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I was doing that the opposite way (ish), trying to get from Oxford to Newbury despite Langley signals/broken down trains etc. It got particularly comic (read: we are all suicidal now) when we got to Theale where we had a train but no driver. The driver that turned up unreasonably insisted on taking his train back to Reading, despite 100+ pleas to the contrary...

It got so bad I ended up getting a lift back to Didcot, where trains were only 20 mins late rather than chancing the replacement buses/trains/who knows what Newbury might have offered.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, in an attempt to arrive before everything was over, I ended up catching a bus to Kidlington and phoning for (car-based) rescue!

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

We were on a southbound Cross-Country train this afternoon that was advertised to stop at Reading West only, not Reading (I noticed on our outbound journey that there were Rail Replacement buses between Reading and Reading West). As if I needed telling, I am convinced the world has gone mad.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

When I was coming through at lunchtime we weren't even allowed to get a train at Reading West. (This is how I ended up at Theale, because they would give us a bus to there where a train was waiting...)

[dr-bob.livejournal.com]

I can confirm that it is not you, venta, that is cursing the trains, as I again took an hour and a half for the same journey as Saturday, this time to get in to London this morning.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh dear :(

I caught up yesterday with a friend who commutes Didcot to Oxford everyday, and she concurred that they've been especially awful the past few weeks.