This has not been my day.
I was booked - with a non-flexible, no-refunds ticket - on the 1835 East Coast service from King's Cross. I spotted this morning that most of the Northern Line is out for engineering work, but not to worry - TfL's journey planner suggested it would take about 40 minutes if I used the Circle Line instead. This sounded a bit optimistic, so I left Greenwich with an hour and five minutes to spare. I missed one DLR train at Greenwich - cue 5-minute wait - and then just missed a Circle Line train at Monument. Not a great problem, until I noticed that the next one was ten minutes away. I realised that it was going to be very tight indeed to make the train at KX. It doesn't help that a) I'm very unfit, and b) don't ever use the Circle Line platforms at KX and therefore wasted seconds checking signs to ensure that I ran the right way. The upshot was that I ran panting up the platform just as my train was pulling out, the journey having taken not 40 minutes, but more than an hour. Not best pleased.
Anyhow, a quick ask at the info desk (who know less about trains on the East Coast Main Line than me - useless: avoid), ticket office (marginally more helpful), National Rail app (shit - keeps crashing) and a couple of websites (fine, but ticket prices opaque as ever), turns up that my next train is also the cheapest; the 1948 Hull Trains service to Hull, and I can buy my ticket on board. It's £75, which is twenty quid cheaper than an all-companies ticket but still not exactly cheap. Nevertheless, it was the best option, and after an hour or so spent mooching around King's Cross and chain-smoking my bad temper away, I settled into my seat, munched a sandwich, and looked forward to getting home only a little more than an hour later than planned. Then the train stopped suddenly somewhere in the wilds around Peterborough and stayed there. After a few minutes the guard announces there's a train fault which they're investigating. Another few minutes later a fire engine comes charging up the path by the lineside with blues and twos going. And then another one. And a police car. Don't be alarmed, the guard says: the train isn't on fire. Some passengers have already moved through from first class as there's smoke blowing in through the air con in one of the coaches. We sit there. It gets steadily hotter, since the air con obviously isn't working. Lots of firemen, BTP officers and Network Rail bods are standing around looking at bits of train, and occasionally coming through the passenger spaces, all looking a bit harassed. The first class steward comes by, carrying bottles of water to hand out. We buttonhole him, and he says there's a small diesel leak which was dripping on something hot and smoking badly. Nothing actually caught fire, but they had to stop and get it checked over since, as he put it, 'the one time we don't is the one time it'll go up properly.' He assures us we will actually get to Hull tonight, though, which is something. Eventually the guard comes on and tells us that they need to shut the train down to restart the air con and other systems, and therefore to stay away from the doors. All the lights go out. Then they come back on, along with the air con, and the engines. A few minutes later the driver sounds the horn; one of the emergency vehicles does that football-chant rhythm back on its horn, the engines rev up and we start moving again. The police, firemen, an ambulance crew and a load of Network Rail bods all wave and give us the thumbs up as we set off, bless 'em.
Anyhow, we're now at Doncaster - at 2218. I should have been home an hour ago already. Nevertheless, at least I will actually get there tonight, which for a moment looked less than certain.
Action points:
Me - don't trust a word TfL say ever again, and look for alternative employment closer to home.
TfL - sort your fucking journey planner out. If it's possible for a journey to take half as long again as you seem to think it's going to then fucking say so! Enjoy the blistering letter you'll be getting next week...
King's Cross station/East Coast - it would be appreciated if you'd staff the enquiry desk with people who actually know what the fuck they're talking about!
National Rail - kindly produce a phone app that doesn't fall on its arse every few minutes. And someone please do something to make ticket prices more intelligible and walk-up tickets less of a flaming rip-off.
Hull Trains - kindly make the fares section of your website more comprehensible ... and for Christ's sake chuck those bloody Adelantes on a scrap-heap and get some reliable trains!
but they never suggest an alternative seat
Left Hull 45 minutes late, with the promise of more delays as we crawl through the affected area. Oh well,at least I'm not in too much of a hurry today, and if we're an hour late I'll get my money back...
Do they not think people from Kennington/Stockwell/Brixton/Streatham work centrally?
