Low-cost midlife crisis

“I have no idea if the 17.57 train is going to be leaving from Cambridge today. I’ve tried calling the train company but they’re not picking up” – Station announcement

We’ve travelled across half of Europe. According to the stats page of the app we’ve been in 11 countries so far and travelled about 4000 kms. We’ve had very full trains and trains that were a bit late. But we’ve not before encountered a train that apparently vanished off the face of the earth.

The train day started off badly when we got to the village station to discover that the train we intended to catch had been cancelled. The announcement told us that this was due to “a number of issues”. I guess it’s nice to know that there were multiple reasons, but “a number of issues” seems like a bit of a cop out. And zero is, after all, a number.

We did eventually get a train (the next one after this was cancelled too – no doubt thanks to some issues) and spent the afternoon in Cambridge, its beautiful views somewhat spoiled by the dry parched nature of the grass

We did stuff, as you do, and eventually headed back to the station to go back, the mere 10ish kms, home. The next train back was due at 17.57, but it was quickly apparent that there were still issues. Probably a number of them. Most trains were delayed. There were also messages on the screens warning of potentially slippery platforms because of the weather. This seemed somewhat odd as the endless drought affecting the country (and in fact most of the continent) was still ongoing. At least in Cambridgeshire, though we learned later that elsewhere in the country there were storms and flooding.

Our train, however, was still showing on time though not actually showing up in a more tangible and useful sense. As 17.57 ticked round, the automated announcement announced “The train now boarding at platform 2 is the 17.57 service to London Kings Cross calling at…”. I waited to see if anyone would start us off and attempt to board this invisible train. But no one did. (Just after that, the standard see it, say it, sorted message came on, which begins “If you see anything unusual…”. I confess I was tempted to report this very unusual ghost train, but I held back)

The next train we could catch left half an hour later, but that one was already showing as delayed. It looked like we might be spending a long time at the station. I texted my daughter to suggest that she perhaps might be advised to shoot for the second last train home in the evening, rather than the last one, since things here were obviously not entirely normal or reliable (well they weren’t reliable, and I’m not sure how normal that is)

In the end, for about 20 kms of rail travel, lasting about 18 minutes in total, we had to wait around for slightly over 2 hours. This seems a lot. I blame the Tories (and I strongly suspect that I am right to do so)

I read the newspaper today, the day after, and there is no mention of the missing passengers. It’s obviously in the interests of the powers that be, that their vanishing remain hushed up.