Ooops, we've cancelled too many trains...

[Mumble]

Heard this today and it made me giggle (although that probably says more about my sense of humour than it actually being funny) and thought I'd share it.

 

I was trying to get home today and was at the train station with announcements being just continuous and following each other:

"We're sorry to announce that that 2:05 service from London to X has been cancelled due to snow, We're sorry to announce that the 2:08 service from London to Y has been cancelled due to snow, We're sorry to announce that the 2:13 service from London to Z has been cancelled due to snow..." (and this continued with pretty much 2/3 of the trains)

 

But then:

 

"We're sorry to announce that the 2:14 service from London to W will be terminating at London today due to snow" Erm, well if it's terminating where it's starting, that's cancelled then, right? Maybe they're only allowed to use the 'C' word a certain number of times each day?

 

Oh, and I had a lovely walk home... (really - I had my wellies, and I love the snow, it was just a little cold )

 

[Kathryn]

I suppose one just has to laugh at all the chaos.

 

I had to contend with cancelled trains today too. What baffles me is when they announce that the 5.27 will now arrive at 5.57 and continue to call it the 5. 27 even though it's way past that time.

 

And I get really annoyed when the indicators say that a train will be "on time" and then a few minutes before it's due they put up a new estimated time and keep repeating this indefinitely, thus ensuring you remain perpetually frozen on the platform in a state of anticipation thinking that you don't have time to go and grab a latte to warm up your insides. By the time the train actually arrives you realise you could have downed a three course meal in the meantime, never mind a latte.

 

Aah the joys of commuting.

 

And I fell on my bum twice on the way home too !!! Never mind the roads - why can't the council grit the freakin' pavements??!

 

K x

[Mumble]

What baffles me is when they announce that the 5.27 will now arrive at 5.57 and continue to call it the 5. 27 even though it's way past that time.

There was a great letter in the paper today - I assume it was a response to someone who had previously written in to gloat that their train was on time - which said "are you sure it wasn't actually 24 hours late?"

 

And I fell on my bum twice on the way home too !!! Never mind the roads - why can't the council grit the freakin' pavements??!

Ooooh yes, I agree with this one - the best/worst/most ridiculous (depending on frame of mind) thing was, the most slippery hilly pavement I encountered today was the pavement outside the hospital!!! The road was completely clear and over-gritted (I even got gritted myself as I crossed it, they were being that over-zealous going up and down!! ) but the pavement to walk to out-patients or A&E was treacherous - still I guess you'd be in the right place if you did fall!!

Edited January 7, 2010 by Mumble

[JsMum]

I suppose one just has to laugh at all the chaos.

 

I had to contend with cancelled trains today too. What baffles me is when they announce that the 5.27 will now arrive at 5.57 and continue to call it the 5. 27 even though it's way past that time.

 

And I get really annoyed when the indicators say that a train will be "on time" and then a few minutes before it's due they put up a new estimated time and keep repeating this indefinitely, thus ensuring you remain perpetually frozen on the platform in a state of anticipation thinking that you don't have time to go and grab a latte to warm up your insides. By the time the train actually arrives you realise you could have downed a three course meal in the meantime, never mind a latte.

 

Aah the joys of commuting.

 

And I fell on my bum twice on the way home too !!! Never mind the roads - why can't the council grit the freakin' pavements??!

 

K x

 

The worse ones are when they say a Trian is on time, and you wait at the platform they say it is waiting on, then they change it to five mins late, then after five mins change it to ten mins, then after Ten mins later it tells you that it has arrived but on another PLATFORM, which means you have to find the platforM, run down stairs, run upstairs, run under tunnels and then run to the platform for it to be pulling away just as you hit the open door button, now that does make me cry when that happens.

 

Poor you having to comute all that way, I rode my bike as I knew if I walked Id fall flat on my back, ok I did fall of my bike a few times but you glide rather than fall, so I prefer my bike in this weather, I cant stand Ice skating and now you know why, I fall, basically.

 

Wishing all the best for Tomorrow.

 

JsMumxxx

 

[Kathryn]

The worse ones are when they say a Trian is on time, and you wait at the platform they say it is waiting on, then they change it to five mins late, then after five mins change it to ten mins, then after Ten mins later it tells you that it has arrived but on another PLATFORM, which means you have to find the platforM, run down stairs, run upstairs, run under tunnels and then run to the platform for it to be pulling away just as you hit the open door button, now that does make me cry when that happens.

Or you reach the platform only to find that everyone else has beaten you to it and the train is now so full that there isn't room for you. As happened to me during the pre - Christmas snows.

 

I will have earned my glass of wine when I get home tomorrow, I think.

 

K x

[zaman]

Or when the information board shows the train time as coming in 5 minutes, then when that time is up it shifts back another 5 minutes, etc, so you never really know whether to give up on that train or not.

 

And why does everyone use the term 'adverse weather conditions'? Why can't they just say snow - perhaps because it doesn't sound dramatic enough to have caused all the schools to close?

 

We were in the supermarket yesterday and an announcement came over that due to the adverse weather conditions the lottery machine was not available. Someone piped up 'couldn't it get into work because of the snow then?'

 

 

[Gordie]

I was trying to get home today and was at the train station with announcements being just continuous and following each other:

"We're sorry to announce that that 2:05 service from London to X has been cancelled due to snow, We're sorry to announce that the 2:08 service from London to Y has been cancelled due to snow, We're sorry to announce that the 2:13 service from London to Z has been cancelled due to snow..." (and this continued with pretty much 2/3 of the trains)

Were you at Woking, Mumble? It was like that there on January 7^th (i.e. when you posted), except the trains being referred to were from about an hour earlier than the current time. Not that I even wanted to be at Woking - that was where I got booted out (for the third time, having expected NO changes!) and told I wouldn't be going any further. Not much help when you live in Yeovil, trying to get to London - that's about as far from home as you can get without actually getting where you want to go. I was not impressed - turns out that this is what stopped me from getting into London (ironic when it was so cold! ), and I did get my train fare immediately refunded when I got back home ... no compensation for the 10 wasted hours on the 200-mile round trip though, nor the £50 deposit I had to squander due to a missed appointment at the place I was trying to get to.

 

I had to contend with cancelled trains today too. What baffles me is when they announce that the 5.27 will now arrive at 5.57 and continue to call it the 5. 27 even though it's way past that time.

People might think they were on the train scheduled for 5:57 if they didn't do that ... not that it matters, I suppose.

 

And I get really annoyed when the indicators say that a train will be "on time" and then a few minutes before it's due they put up a new estimated time and keep repeating this indefinitely, thus ensuring you remain perpetually frozen on the platform in a state of anticipation thinking that you don't have time to go and grab a latte to warm up your insides. By the time the train actually arrives you realise you could have downed a three course meal in the meantime, never mind a latte.

Don't forget the whole system is entirely automated these days ... well it is on the networks I use most often anyway (usually South West Trains).

 

James

[Mumble]

Were you at Woking, Mumble?

Nope, same line though!

 

I did get my train fare immediately refunded when I got back home

Huh, I'm still waiting for a decision as to whether my ticket can be refunded from Christmas for my 9 1/2 hour journey that should have taken 3 hours...

 

Don't forget the whole system is entirely automated these days ... well it is on the networks I use most often anyway (usually South West Trains)

It's the same with the tubes - the minutes till next train indicator are based on distance not time, so a train can be three minutes away if it were going at normal speed but not actually be moving at all... Very irritating, because if it says one minute away and clearly several minutes have passed, you know that the train is just inside the tunnel but you can't actually get on it.

 

[Tally]

Sometimes I find the announcements on the train are one station ahead. It tells me I am home and I go to get off and find I am not there yet! People who don't use the line regularly might easily have got off at the wrong station.

[Gordie]

Huh, I'm still waiting for a decision as to whether my ticket can be refunded from Christmas for my 9 1/2 hour journey that should have taken 3 hours...

Ah, but the difference there is that you eventually got to your destination, however long it may have taken to get there, so there's a grey area. My situation was more black-and-white, coz I didn't get to my destination - I had to turn straight back (coz I'd already comfortably missed my appointment, so it was pointless completing the journey, especially as I had no idea how much longer services to Waterloo were gonna be suspended), which made it a much more straight-forward decision ... or maybe the ticket office man at Yeovil Junction was just more generous than whoever you dealt with! Although the helpful man at Woking (who had to put up with a constant stream of customer questions while I was stranded there! ) also said I'd definitely be able to get a refund. I guess you had a ruddy form to fill in. I expect you'll be refunded eventually, but I suppose it has to go through the system first.

 

It was funny actually - on my bank statement, the refund appeared chronologically before my initial payment (albeit on the same date)!

 

James