I just want to get home!

Up until the past few days, I couldn’t understand why trains in the UK - or at least England - have such a bad reputation among the people I know: okay, so they weren’t exactly plushy – or even very nice – but they got me where I needed to be and on time, too. The last five or so times I have travelled using the trains, though, I have discovered why they are mocked as well as gaining a loathing of using them.

Strangely, the problems never come from the Skegness–Nottingham line – they always (yes, always) come from the Birmingham New Street-Derby line. How it is that a line from a small seaside town is more reliable than a line from a city, I don’t know. But it’s true all the same.
Take this weekend, for example.
For the past week, I have been in Derby with Wayne. However, I had to be back today so that I could make an important dentist appointment. It took me four attempts to get here, and even then I didn’t make it on time to make the appointment.
What could have caused that?

Cancellations and delays.

The first time I tried to get home was Sunday. Not exactly a good day to choose due to the timetables being fucked up, but I was talked into staying longer than planned by Wayne. This time, missing the train was my fault. I fully admit to that (although I think Wayne deserves some of the credit, too, seeing as he was the reason why I was walking so slowly to the station - he doesn't half talk some rubbish!). It's the only time I take responsibility for it: the other times it was entirely down to the stupid railway service.
Tuesday evening was the second attempt I made. This time, the train arrived on time, but departed 3 minutes late. While this doesn't sound disastrous, I only have 10 minutes to get from the train to Nottingham to the train to Boston, so every single minute counts. Had that been the only delay, I could have possibly made it, although I would have been knackered from running – the platform my Nottingham train arrives at is on the opposite side of the station to where the Skegness train departs. Then came the killing blow for my plans to get home that night: about 3 minutes away from the destination, the train pulled to a halt, and didn’t move for about 20 minutes.

There was another train to Boston, don’t get me wrong. I could have got it. But I would have had to wait for an hour and a half, and the station was cold. And by ‘cold’ I mean ‘fucking freezing’; there wasn't much wind, but the station was funnelling it and making it chillier than Wayne’s old house on a cold day. Fuming and almost to the point of pulling my hair out in anger, I rang Wayne and let him know what was going on. Half an hour later, I was back on a train to Derby, planning on spending an extra night at his house. I was definitely not a happy bunny - especially as this wasn't the first time this had happened to me. It's happened once before, at the beginning of May: I was trying to get home, train was late, I had to wait for hours for next train. Okay, so they offered me a taxi to Boston last time, and I took them up on it. Last night, however, they told me to catch the train to Grantham (meaning that hour and a half wait) then get a taxi from there to Boston. But what's the point of that? I'd be getting home the same time as the really late Nottingham - Skegness train!

The third time I walked to the station was this morning. I was going to catch the 1110 and arrive at 1330 – just in time to get to the dentist when I reached Boston. The train was cancelled. The next train to Nottingham was only ten minutes later, but it meant that I missed the Skegness train…so I had to catch the one an hour later. And even then it wasn’t the last of the delays: the Skegness train, when it finally arrived, was 10 minutes late in setting off due to a senile old man running around and refusing to sit down. By the time I got home, I was an half an hour late for the dentist and fuming, once again.

Lessons learned: trains are rubbish, and should never be depended upon. Also, I really need to learn to drive or get Wayne to learn to drive so I don’t have to use trains as my main method of transport.

Now that I've ranted about that, I'm in the process of writing a collection of happy blog pots about the awesome time I had last week. I wrote out a diary (well, a mishmash of stuff) in a notebook while I was there, so I'll type them out and post them as separate days on here. It's sort of therapy to make me calm down after writing this out and getting angry (once again) at railways.