We have come to realize that the train schedules change many times during the day and sometimes overnight. We had picked a time that worked for us the night before where we could stop and get a bite to eat first. The train scheduling gods had other plans.
In the morning hubby checked again as he has been doing because we’ve learned track changes, so far, change often. It turns out the train we intended to catch was leaving in ten minutes, an hour before the time last night and we were nowhere near ready. That’s ok, there’s always another one, about an hour later. Got to the station to wait awhile, then scanned our QR tickets, and got on the train that was just waiting for us. No seat assignments on this train, nice. Also not full, excellent. The next train change was running about ten minutes behind so there was about 15 minutes between trains which was also nice otherwise changing platforms becomes chaotic. So this train would be the one that would take us all the way to our destination, Edinburgh, Scotland. Arrival time was 2:30pm, plenty of time to drop our bags off at the hotel and do some sightseeing while it was light out. Edinburgh castle was on the list to see but closes at 5:30pm so we didn’t buy tickets just in case something went wrong. Dun, dun, dunnnn.
The announcement over the loudspeaker says, “this train has nine cars. C, G, and U are for passengers without seat assignments.” Excellent, plenty of space for everyone. The train arrives people run to car C so we head back with a pack of other people to G car. A, B, C, D, E, F, H, and two first class cars. Really? So we get on because they’re shouting the doors are closing. Start pushing or luggage down the narrow aisle-way with a family of three in front of us also looking for seats. We make it down to C where it’s completely filled except for one seat which I snag because hubby and I said that we’d be ok with that as long as one got a seat. I didn’t even get time to sit when a train employee said that they had to keep this seat and one across open. So she made me move. One car was no seat assignments, two cars first class, five cars were completely booked, and this train was 2.5 hours away from destination. We made it through to the back of C to stand in the little compartment where the doors open and close with two other passengers. Two stops later a man left the car and I jumped in the seat with my personal item bag with a lady next to me. Hubby held on to my carry-on in the compartment because there was no place to put it. That lady next to me also left the train and hubby was able to sit next to me. We had to slide my carry-on between my legs with my other bag on top in front of me. Hubby couldn’t slide his bag in the same way because half his body would be in the aisle, so put his personal item bag between his legs and his carry-on in his lap. We would ride this way for the remainder of the trip. We made it to the Carlisle station and an announcement came over that said the train in front of us had broken down on the tracks and there was no way around it but it should be fixed soon hopefully. Thirty minutes later second announcement was that the train would need to be moved down the tracks and a locomotive was on its way, hopefully not much longer. Ten minutes later announcement three was we will be here for at least two hours. Announcement four we are getting ready to leave and the people who bought tickets today would get a full refund. We hadn’t bought them today because we bought a package that would let us customize our travel throughout the UK, oh well just glad to be moving
We made it Edinburgh. A bit dusty from the trip but we made it. Not in time to see inside the castle but we can’t have everything
Just a PSA if you’re thinking of traveling through the UK this way. Things change and we change with them, right after a Xanax.
No comments:
Post a Comment