Easter 2010
Saturday 2010 LONDON-DMF 9.54.
Seat- Reserved on-line as expected. Train not full. There’s a lesson here somewhere.
RETURN DMF LONDON. Check website just in case. Announcement of Scotrail Industrial action and interruption of service between Kilmarnock and Dumfries. A link to bus service timetable: a bus leaves DMF station at 13.08. Damn, it’s 12.00 now. Phone National Rail help line. Connection to India. The slightly confused chap has no record of trouble. 13.55 is running normally. Next I phone automated tracker. 13.55 service is confirmed but there is ‘Important Information About This Service.’ “Do I wish to hear the message?” Damn right! I punch the button and I am told there is Industrial Action “We have no more information about this.” Fuck sake! I call a third time and this time a gentleman in India very confidently assures me that there is industrial action but the 13.55 will be running as advertised. Just as well I didn’t turn up for the 13.08 bus, then.
At Dumfries, the notice board announces “13.55….. On time.” Beneath a continuous rolling band states “12th -14th Changes to Service, Check for details” (or something similar). At 14.00 when the train rolls in, the board still states “13.55…On time.”
At Carlisle the 14.49 to Euston is ‘Delayed’. Apparently it is stuck somewhere near Motherwell behind a 'failed train.' The replacement loco has just arrived on site but it will be at least an hour. I check with the ticket office. The very sweet and helpful young lady makes a special call to ‘The Box’ and after much repetition of ‘No problemo,’ at her end, confirms that if I catch the 15.09 train to Birmingham, I can pick up a London train at Crewe. True, the Birmingham train is also delayed by half an hour but it’s my best bet. By 15.30 the delayed Birmingham train is only 6 mins ahead of the delayed 14.49 which is ten minutes ahead of the 15.49 –‘On time.’ Shall I wait for the less cluttered 15.49 after the ’14.49’ has picked up the bulk of the people bound for London? Decide to see how busy the ‘14.49’ is. As it approaches, careful attention to the announcement, reveals the train is coming in backwards- (what happened up the line, there...?) so I speedwalk past bemused fellow ‘customers’ to the other end of the platform- the mythical ‘Goldzone’ normally reserved for First Class customers. It’s a heady feeling. The Quiet Coach A is half full, possibly because nearly all the seats are Reserved- and many remain empty for the rest of the journey.
The carriage is chilly with cold air blasting from the overhead vents. When the Train Manager come to check our tickets from Carlisle, the lady opposite me who has been enduring this since Glasgow with an hour’s delay, repeats a request made just out of Glasgow to turn up the temperature. He protests that he has already adjusted the thermostat. ‘To 21’ –- phew!- We point out that evidently that isn’t enough. He says he can’t adjust it any more in case he gets protests it’s too hot. He shakes his head, as if asking us to share his long-suffering disbelief (The temperature is adjustable carriage by carriage)- and suggests the lady move carriage.
He disappears. “Your problem, then,” mutters a man from across the aisle. We speculate on what it would be like to be a fly on the wall at a Virgin Staff training session. What do they teach them? “To lie” says the exasperated and possibly hypothermic lady opposite me. The conversation segues through the effect of hypothermia on plane passengers – (apparently the passengers of one fatal crash were all thought to have been dead or unconscious when it hit) to the awful Pendolino carriage design which is cramped, smelly and doesn’t even let you enjoy the view but does at least offer a better guarantee of surviving a high speed crash. Interesting priorities. The gent across the aisle notes we are passing by the site of the last fatal Virgin crash and our corner of the Quiet Carriage goes extremely quiet, apart from the surf of someone’s i-Pod down the way. We all note our body temperatures have risen slightly.
Somewhere between Glasgow and Carlisle someone has vomited in the Quiet coach toilet. It’s an admirably a neat job, though. I note that, although one of the On Board staff was the one to find it- apparently the door had jammed- no one comes to give a wee scrub round. “Is this Toilet Squeaky clean?” blares the poster in the toilet, “If Not Let one of our On-Board staff know.” I had often wondered whether, if anyone had ever bothered to stagger along the train to find an invisible Train Manager, it would make any difference. Now I know.
Question: How does a blind person know to feel for the brail notice warning them to Mind The Step on leaving the cubicle (Assuming that they haven’t tripped over it on the way in)?
The delay increases from 53 minutes to 55, to 58. At Preston the new train manager has a grating Manc voice, the volume on her PA is too high and she leans too close to the mike. Every time she makes an announcement- do we really need to know, once we’re on the move, that the next and only ‘station call’ will be London?- everyone flinches as if a low flying jet is passing overhead. We never see her.
The temperature inches up then plummets again as we race through Staffordshire
The train arrives 61 minutes late. Everyone feels wrung out.
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