Travelling by train – oh what joy

Off to London today – loads of work to do – I’ll take the train and rattle the laptop keys on the way – what a good idea.

From the key rattling point of view it is great – from the train traveling point of view it isn’t so hot.  Firstly the train I was going to get for some unexplained reason had its  journey beyond Oxford cancelled, so I decided to get an earlier one.

A rush to Evesham station, past the queue in the ticket office, I’ll pay on the train as it is already pulling in to the platform, grabed a free seat and then…. the on-time train sat in the station for 20 miniutes before setting off.  That was just the start!

The weather report for today as I left was high winds and rain. It appears to be this that has caused the attendant on the train to announce that “All trains in the South of England are now subject to a 50 mph speed restriction“.  Considering that much of the Oxford to London part of the Journey is useually done at speeds well in excess of 100 mph, it’s going to be a long old trip today.

Us British are great at running things like railways, just so long as the weather is not too hot, too windy, or delivers only the right kind of snow.  Makes you wonder if railway designers ever work outside.

Still loads of time before my meeting, so I’m not worried.  It just means that I will get my work done on a cramped train as against in a relaxing coffe bar.  The people around me don’t seem as relaxed though – the moblie phone networks must be making a fortune out of all the calls that are benig made putting all those meetings further andfurther back.

Update: Paddington Station at last! only an hour and a bit late, which is fortunate looking at all the cancellations on the departure board. – I wonder what the trip back will be like.