Perfect timing; I was just reading about how Network Rail’s employees are going to share 55 million quid’s worth of bonuses when the phone rang. It was a friend (James), who I had just dropped off at the railway station. He needed to get back to Derby, on a Sunday afternoon, and all the trains had been cancelled without any notice – he’d travelled from Derby to my house only yesterday and there was no mention of any services being cut.
The only trains available were taking him further away from home, with no promise of ever getting back onto the right track. In desperation he rang me and asked what to do; the only answer was for me to drive him to Birmingham New Street where he would have been getting his connection if the promised service had materialised.
As we drove up to Birmingham from just outside Worcester where I live, James commented that it wouldn’t have been so bad if he could have got to London, to then get back up to Derby. Bearing in mind that Derby is north of me and London is well over 100 miles south, I was incredulous; but he didn’t seem fazed by the idea.
Had James been forced to go to London because I wasn’t around to drive him to Birmingham, he would have spent the thick end of a day sitting in waiting rooms, retracing his steps by rail and having to endure some of the many odd habits of fellow passengers, but as someone who prefers to let the train take the strain, James doesn’t seem to care. That’s James – as for the rest of us, is it any wonder that the government can’t prise us out of our cars, even with fuel costing an arm and a leg?
Things haven’t changed much then…
The only times at which I can recall British Rail services being practical for me were on childhood bucket & spade excursions to the south coast , and when in my early teens, myself, my sister and friends would catch a train from Leatherhead in Surrey in order to go Ice-Skating in Streatham via the direct rail link; and more recently in the eighties & nineties when, due to increasing traffic congestion it became quicker and more convenient to get to into Central London by driving to the nearest appropriate station from my home in Sussex and taking the train to Waterloo, followed by a bus ride to wherever I was heading.
However during my British Army days, although I was based overseas for much of the time post qualifying, my various unit bases during both training and operations were located either in Berkshire or Hampshire, from which there were no direct rail routes, and if I had not been fortunate enough to have had a driving licence plus a car, I would have spent a large proportion of my leave periods in transit, living on BR “Sarnies”
AlfaMartini | 21 Jun 08 - 18:52