Kings Chaos

With severe flooding in the north Midlands and the pseudo “north of England” that is South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, I was sent on a merry go round before returning back to square one by clueless railways staff.

“Hello, I am a Customer Assistant Annoyer, how can I help inconvience you?”.

I had arrived at Kings Cross intending to go home tonight – wary of the looming disaster that will cripple the country for a few hours because all eyes turns to the rolling news on people being trapped in offices and cars. It is this wariness that I figured I’d best get the train earlier rather than later.

On arrivng at Kings Chaos station, one can only be amazed that the fire regulations permit these many individuals interlocked with suitcases and tickets inside the station. I made a bee-line for St. Pancras after noticing half the station was “queuing” either at the information desk or the ticket sales.

I intended to do a reverse trip of what I did last September – London to Derby on the Midland Mainline, Derby to Newcastle on Virgin. No good. All trains north of Derby are sitting pretty in their stations while some probably look like a log of poo surrounded by brown waters from the air.

Midland Mainline staff tells me that GNER has put on a bus service between Bedford and Sandy and that GNER are running from Sandy, so all I need to do is hop on a train to Bedford and wait for a bus there. At the station a few of us were waiting for that bus.

That familiar realisation of the bus not going to materialise at all was confirmed by the extremely helpful and patient Bedford station master after ringing around trying to get reliable information.

As I was waiting for the train back to London, I was advised by another staff to continue up the line for Nottingham instead. “But where do I go from there? Oh just take a local train service to the East Coast Mainline or Sheffield from Nottingham”. Yeah right(!). That inspires a great deal of confidence in me.

A Midland Mainline train conductor then gave me short shriff after inspecting my ticket by just saying “NO.” No what, I asked? “You can’t go to London on this ticket, you want to go to Newcastle”. I am going to Newcastle! I think she must have thought I was retarded and sighed, gave me back my tickets and walked off chasing other customers.

On returning to London, my good mam has texted me to say that GNER are running trains again. Sure enough there was one leaving. However, the whole station and their suitcase wants to get on it. I sighed and ate a Mars Bars while they stampede onto the train. I couldn’t believe that many could fit onto one train.

People watching is a great tool in playing in today’s world. In that time, I observed that the vast majority were not going into the First Class carriages. Those that were suits with no luggage, clutching a London newspaper. These people do not travel first class normally and know the tricks of the trade. I followed them and found myself a nice comfy First Class seat. Those who were forced to stand were also offered a free upgrade to First Class and the ticket conductor allowed us to remain there.

Most of the suits got off an hour later, virtually leaving the whole carriage to myself for my whole journey. Bliss! On disembarking at Newcastle, I could see the “poor” class were squashed up like cattle and clearly a little bit crowded.

That gave me a nice warm feeling and a big smile.

So, big thanks to GNER despite their massive disruption – it wasn’t their fault, they can’t be responsible for floods.

First Capital Connect Staff at Bedford – very patient and kept a potentially fissile situation under control.

Midland Mainline – bloody useless for sending me on a trip to Bedford for a ghost bus and griff for trying to get back to London, and pretty dirty trains both way. No wonder you guys lost the contract.