Last night was the Macworld Awards. A fun night at the Dome as a guest of Adobe.
Getting home, though, was another matter. They’d fixed the torn-down overhead wires and the morning’s slow-running was a result of ‘residual delays’ and trespassers on the track. Later in the afternoon, though, a freight train derailed a little way up the line from Chelmsford and the fragile timetable was thrown into disarray.
I got to Stratford at half 11, and there was little sign of anything heading in the direction of home. In a half-hearted attempt to clear his platforms, the only person I could see on duty there directed me onto an all-stations train back to Shenfield that was so old it was one of the models I used to take to school more than 20 years ago. Not comfortable. And full of people eating burgers and arguing.
We were all turfed off at Shenfield and left to mill around on a platform. By now it was well gone midnight, and getting cold. I was still in the tux, which isn’t really the warmest thing to wear. Over half an hour later, by which point the connecting service was 25 minutes late but still marked on the boards as ‘on time’, a busy train finally pulled in. It took all the platform staff by surprise and they shooed us off from platform 3 to platform 5 like collies chasing sheep.
I’m not surprised; the real issue throughout this whole sorry episode has been lack of information. And occasionally the availability of disinformtation. As ihatenationalexpress points out,
They told the press that this was the first time this had happened and blamed vandalism. It turns out that this is the third time the lines have fallen down at Ingatestone and no vandalism appeared to be involved. Their relationship with the press needs to be questioned.
I did make it to my bed, eventually, but not before two this morning. This has been one of the worst weeks I can remember on the trains. It has almost rivalled the months of go-slow that followed the Hatfield crash. At least then we knew that there would be trains, even if they were slow.
This week, there’s not even been the guarantee of any service at all.
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