Travel Gremlins

It's been a day...

A long day...

A trip to work's office in Basingstoke is never particularly straight forward but...

BUT!!!

The first train at just before 6am - decided to tell us there was a signalling fault, and sat at the station for five extra minutes... and then crept into Liverpool.

The Virgin down to London was for once only 10 minutes late - or ON TIME as we've come to accept it...

The Tube, for once worked like a dream...

And then Waterloo...

At this point I feel duty bound to say I have a fair grasp on my faculties, and am capable of walking significant distances...

Platform numbers weren't showing, so asked one person in uniform, got sent to a platform where the train wasn't going to Basingstoke... So asked another, different platform.... still not going to Basingstoke... Ask a third... and he checks his app...

Get on the train... and the guard tells me I'm on the slow, stopping train... and there was a faster one leaving behind us, but it was too late to run across the platforms.

So Basingstoke... Pity the instructions on getting to the office said for those on the train get a cab... unless you were driving, in which case park in town, and walk from the town centre.
Good meeting, went well...

Walk back to the station... 15 minutes...


I even got the slightly earlier train from Basingstoke that gave me a half chance of getting the earlier train home... Guess what the earlier train  was late, I missed my connection by a minute... 

The journey was slightly unpleasant by the lady next to me over spilling her seat somewhat, and tucking her legs diagonally into mine - normally if I'm feeling that much warm thigh I at least have been on a date!  If it was a come-on it didn't work, and the seats aren't that bloody small!
 
Anyway, back to the travel If New Street had been organised a bit better and I hadn't been given directly contradictory directions I may have made it to the connection. If station redesigners want to see how NOT to do things, so to New Street now... as well as my experience, see later for the lengths they're having to go to.  

No worries, I'm only on the train I'd planned on with time for a coffee...
 
Have coffee...

Walk back... Discover that you now can't get through the shopping centre to get through to the station. No worries plenty of time to get to the 17:01...

The 17:01 has been cancelled due to a 'staff issue'...

Get given two contradictory sets of instructions to get home...

And spot that New Street is so bad that for some platforms they have walking guides taking you on a merry trip around the place to get to your platform. IF IT IS THAT BAD YOU NEED TO DO MORE THAN SHOUT AT PEOPLE TO FOLLOW YOU!

The penultimate train with at least double its normal complement of people, and I've won a table with a family that look like they've come out of cloning tubes... who get off a few stops later and get replaced by a loud child... I'm sorry people by now I've been on the go for 12 hours...
 
And guess what, that train is delayed by about 10 minutes...

Miss the next connection... fortunately they are every 15 minutes.

And in a final irony of the day, my train sat outside of my station as there was a signalling fault.
A 14h day... good job it was a good meeting...

Sorry, no running today.. I need an early night!

TTFN

Paul

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