Long way home

I’m sitting here writing this on a train between Manchester and London. It wasn’t my intended journey home, but there you go. A power failure at Preston has meant no trains in and around Preston for most of today.

And ok you won’t be able to read this until I get home, due to me being unable to get Wi-Fi working; it’s giving me something to do.

A lot of people in this country moan about the trains. I admit, after a £6bn upgrade of the West Coast Main Line a power failure of this scale around the Preston area shouldn’t happen, we just have to get on as best we can.

This is what Virgin, and indeed the other train operators into Preston, have done. And done it well.

I decided to travel home earlier than planned, as I had no idea how long it would take to get home, and the idea of getting home at gone midnight didn’t appeal. So I arrived about 3.20 at Preston station. Straight away I was told which coach to get for the first stage of my journey. This left pretty much as I sat down and we were off towards Manchester.

We were originally supposed to head to Manchester by coach, however they clocked that entering Manchester in rush hour wouldn’t be clever. So when we made our stop in Bolton they explained what was going to happen and why. Train it was to Manchester.

This brings me on to the worst part of the journey. Standing on what can only be described as a bus on rails. Not pleasant at the best of times. Appreciated even less when you have a suitcase and backpack...as does everybody else!

Nevertheless we made it to Manchester and I’m now being whizzed towards the capital, although remember when you read this I will have made it home.

So a well done to the train companies for helping us get to our destinations as easily possible. We were always going to be disrupted, however an extra 90 minutes taken to get home is not as bad as it could have been.

One more thing. It was nice that despite all the disruption there seemed to be no angry people anywhere. Everyone accepted what was going on, and OK we would all prefer a straightforward journey home, people seemed to just get on with it. I chatted to a few people who seemed in good spirits despite the discomfort. I can’t see anyone around London being quite as understanding somehow...