Only an excuse...??

[Glaswegian]

I travel to work by train every day. The journey only takes 20 minutes and my regular train is an express - it stops at one station after mine then does not stop at any other stations until it reaches Glasgow Central station. This morning it was all stop and go - sit at a signal for a few minutes then move on to the next one, and so on. Normally, any delays are completely ignored by rail staff - no explanations, apologies, nothing. Not so today - the driver decided to let his passengers know what was happening as we finally arrived at Central station. Apparently the delay was caused by - wait for it - additional traffic!

What "additional traffic"? Had some car drivers got fed up with the queues on the roads and decided to drive on the rail tracks? Had other trains sneaked onto our line without anyone knowing? I thought the rail company had things like timetables and signals to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Perhaps Thomas the Tank Engine and friends had nipped out for any early morning stroll and forgot to tell the Fat Controller where they were going.

I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow's journey now...

 

[Felix Atagong]

Trains... I can go on for hours about trains...

Waiting at the station on platform 5 for the train of 18h45 to come.
Nothing happens.
19h00, still no train and no explanations either, and we all wait in silence.
At 19h05 we see a railroad bloke: "Do you know when the train from 18h45 is going to come?"
Bloke from the railroad: "Huh, that train left already 20 minutes ago, on platform 1..."

 

[Felix Atagong]

... and one day... train (that is already 15 minutes late) leaves Brussels North... ...well not exactly leaves, because at about 10 meters outside the station the train stops... ...and waits... ...10 minutes... ....15 minutes... ...20 minutes... ...25 minutes... ...30 minutes... as usual no news whatsoever, not on the intercom and the train bloke apparently hiding himself somewhere...

So we used the emergency handle to open the doors, walked the 10 meters back to the platform and took another train...

(lucky nobody caught us (or bothered about it) as it is a big offense opening the doors of a train while driving...)

 

[Glaswegian]

Felix

I think you've just destroyed the British view of continental train systems. I've always thought that train systems in Europe were clean, efficient and ran on time - maybe we're not so bad after all...

 

[Felix Atagong]

As trains were invented in England and Belgium was the second country in the world to implement this system (otherwise we are never that fast ) we have also imported the British efficiency regarding train schedules...

 

[TrippyTom]

I guess I should consider myself lucky, living in chicago where the train is Elevated above traffic. It runs pretty smoothly.

 

[Mark O'Brien]

I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow's journey now...

Just use the "Overground" instead.

 

[Glaswegian]

Just use the "Overground" instead.

Mark - if you mean the bus, no thanks. I've got a 20 minute walk to the nearest bus stop for a bus that goes near the office. the train station is just 5 minutes away. Perhaps I should look out my bicycle clips...

 

[Mark O'Brien]

Yes, I'm referring to the bus. I just remember about 6 years ago that FirstBus had their "Overground" marketing scheme going. A kind of pretendy attempt to say that buses are as good as an underground system.

 

[PaddyD]

My favourite - whilst waiting for a train at Waterloo station, tannoy announcement that a service was being cancelled because they couldn't find a driver who knew the way.