Further on after Dawn

Well, there was something I forgot to mention in my last post, and that was the reason for the title. What I forgot to mention was that the train that I was trying not to miss at Clapham Junction was the last train of the day and,  therefore, should I miss it, I would indeed be travelling until dawn or, in fact, beyond.

And I can now reveal it was a close run thing!

There is a maxim in the armed forces that goes something like this: 

"No battle plan lasts more than 20 minutes after first contact with the enemy!"

The point is this, plan as much as you like, but you still have a situation that can play out in many different ways, and it is almost impossible to be certain which one of them will happen.

My train journey was nothing like that. Obviously, I am trying to make my tedious lifestyle seem more interesting to the casual observer than it really is. How is it working so far?

Where was I? Ah, yes, racing down to London on an LNER Azuma. I chose this particular timing because the train only stopped in York and then London. You would think that made it a quicker journey, but the vagaries of the network mean that the train was always getting caught behind slower moving traffic, etc. and this is reflected in the timetable. 

I am fond of the Azumas as they are built up here in the North East. They look pretty cool, too. The only problem with these is the seating. I have heard rumours that Hitachi (the train manufacturer) was somewhat taken aback by the Department for Transport's request. As the end customer, it was they who specified the seating density and therefore the seating design. I would not describe them as uncomfortable. They are, however, just a notch above that and a slight notch here or there, and they would indeed be unusable. Not quite as bad as the infamous Ironing Board trains of Thameslink, but close. The ride comes in for some stick to but, in my honest opinion, this comes down to the track as much as anything. People often compare these trains unfavourably with HST sets from the seventies. If my memory serves (not a given these days), these trains had far deeper cushions that absorbed an awful lot of the lumps and bumps. Todays Azuma seats are rock hard. I do love the at seat service though on LNER. 

My journey into London was as advertised and arrived into a humid Kings Cross as near as dammit on time. I often have trouble exiting Kings Cross with tickets printed before travel. Something seems to be awry with the as I can never get out of my platform at Kings Cross nor onto it. The former problem was negated this night as the ticket barriers were all open and we just wandered off. 

There is quite a stroll from Kings Cross Platforms to the Victoria Underground line. So much so that it feels like you might as well of walked all the way to Waterloo station than caught the underground. By the time you have walked back to the Underground barriers and headed down the deep escalator and along several small tunnels until you actually reach the Victoria Line platform, that is. It is only 1500 steps according to my step counterit just seems more.

Thus ended the easy part of my journey. Life was about to get a bit more complicated when I reached Vauxhall station. The online ticket seller had allowed a very generous hour and ten minutes for my trip across town to Clapham Junction. Just to be sure I was at Clapham before my last train passed through, I decided to hop onto the first train that was headed to Clapham from Vauxhall. I could arrive at Clapham in plenty of time to get around. It has a lot of platforms! Trains head off to Brighton, Portsmouth, Weymouth, and Windsor through this station. That is a healthy chunk of South East England covered from that station, so finding the right Platform was important.

I did indeed jump on the first train at Vauxhall heading towards Clapham Junction (Next stop). An announcement describing an apology for the late running of the service had me wondering whether this train was going to go anywhere or should I get off and await another? 

Just as the cogs in my brain were beginning to grind with all the different permutations that might be available to me, the train doors closed, and we set off. Clapham, here I come. Sure enough, I had done the right thing. I was at Clapham juntion and I discovered the correct platform for my onward journey and began to wait out the 20 minutes until my train was due.

It was from this point that the night may have turned ugly. It was apparent there was some kind of monumental hold up to all trains headed down the Woking to Weymouth section of the line. The train I had stepped onto was actually running half an hour late. What was happening in front of my very eyes was that delays were getting longer and increasing with every minute I watched. The announcement staff were caught in a horrible juxtaposition. They were desperately trying to advise delayed passengers that other services arriving at that moment would be a better bet than waiting for a delayed service. Unfortunately for the announcement staff, these trains were not arriving when they should have been or at the platform where they usually arrived. Chaos. I felt for them deeply, they were in a mire not of their making.

I was watching the screens and saw my train being delayed every minute. To the point, I wondered whether it might just be cancelled anyway, and I would be left in Clapham with no other train until 5:30 a.m. the next morning. 

So my choice seemed to be to sit tight and wait for my delayed service and hope it showed up. That might leave me stranded in Clapham for the night. About as attractive an idea as being trapped in Beirut for the night! In the end, I decided that progress was the name of the game. I would get on the next available train that arrived at my platform and was headed via Basingstoke. At least it was in the right county (Hampshire). And I may just make a connection to Portsmouth that came from Reading? A long shot but worth the punt. No matter how much my own distaste for Basinghole, sorry Basingstoke. It was a damn sight nicer than Clapham. It was conceivably within extended taxi range also. A stretch, but when allied to the cost of accommodation for one night, a taxi to finish the journey was possible

So I hopped on the next train headed to Basingstoke. It was full. So full. Sardines would have complained of the cramped conditions. That was bad enough, but the fellow traveller I was squeezed up next to was having a very personal call to an ex-girlfriend/ex-wife. I shared details (non sexual i might add) of his private life that were, in parts, fascinating, horrifying, and just quite laughable. In a nutshell, he was spending the weekend with his ex and his kids, and although he was cool with her dating other men, he ordered her not to bat so much as an eyelid at other men whilst in his company. His phone then ran out of power, and within moments, he was chatting up the women in the cubicle with us. They seemed to quite enjoy his attention. Wonders will never cease. They cannot have failed to have overheard everything I did and yet did not seem to be at all vexed that he was turning attention on them, having instructed another bretheren woman to forgo all such pleasures.

back to travel. I updated myself at regular intervals and noted that the train I originally wanted to catch had NOT been cancelled and had indeed set out from Waterloo station 30 minutes behind schedule, and I could have been on it. No worries, I was ahead, would reach Basinghole before it, and continue my journey as if nothing had happened.

The only concern was that the train was catching up, and I thought it would be just my luck that it would undertake me on a separate track and run through Basinghole before me.

I need not have concerned myself. 

The delays had all been caused by some damage to a track. It seems in all this dry weather, the clay around London shrinks, drops, and bends and takes track with it. Engineers had spotted potential problems and closed the line. After some sustained pleading, it seemed a line was reopened. But only one! All trains south of Woking had to go from dual running to single file and at reduced speed, so something of a bottleneck had been created. The upshot was I had an hour's wait on a pleasant, balmy evening at Basingstoke station. It was a better alternative to Clapham.

  

The rest of my journey was uncomplicated and routine, although an hour late.

As I took the 30-minute stroll to my destination from the station (too tight-fisted for a taxi!), I took time to ponder my quote from Robert Louis Stevenson, claiming that the travel itself was more important than the destination or reason for travel. 

Hmmm.... what do you think?