When Things Go Bad…

Last night my Son was travelling up to Leicester to be with his Girlfriend for the weekend. It’s a trip he normally does every other weekend. Long distance relationships and all that… Normally this goes ok – sometimes a minor delay or two over the last 3 years and the only bad days were having to travel home via Nuneaton because of engineering works and choosing to take a coach when that situation was repeated a few weeks later. That was a very bad experience and he said never again! So when it all goes wrong on the railway, he prefers to find an on railway solution.

Yesterday evening the East Midlands Railway and Thameslink were both subject to major disruption because sadly a person was struck by a train between Luton and St Pancras. When this type of tragedy happens, the railway stops. The Rail Accident Investigation Bureau and the Police are called. How long the disruption will last depends on how long it takes for these people to attend and their findings. On average these types of investigation will take a couple of hours assuming there is no suspicion of foul play – longer in other circumstances.

When one of these situations occurs it’s important for passengers waiting to join their train to listen to what the staff are telling them – a lot don’t! The train company will be busy arranging for ticket acceptance via alternative routes. The key is not to panic and understand the advice that is being given because it provides a way of getting to your destination.

An example from last night was the options offered to my Son as ways of getting to Leicester: Euston to Nuneaton and Kings Cross to Peterborough with connecting services from those stations. Both are viable options at the time that he was travelling. He had contacted me to tell of the issue and thus had a bit more back up than the lone passenger trying to get their head around what’s going on. That said, he’s savvy and had already worked out where he was probably going – I just confirmed his decision! It was Kings Cross to Peterborough with LNER and then a CrossCountry train to Leicester. I was able to watch him all the way and update him on the progress of his connecting service. How could I do that? Time for an introduction to the tools of the trainspotter…

First up we have Realtime Trains – I’m pleased to say that a lot of people are becoming aware of this website. Tom, my fellow footie fan uses it to and from games to check how the trains are running. Using this I was able to point Alasdair towards the 20:33 Leeds service as the first stage of his journey to Leicester – To his credit he’d also tracked that one down 😎 On this I was also able to track the connecting service which was the last Stansted to Birmingham train of the day.

He was a little concerned that choosing to take the suggested alternate route might backfire as the EMR services could restart and he might have got there quicker. I had that covered too via the Railcam website. This shows what trains are running using the actual signal diagrams and has some strategically placed cameras allowing a view of some routes. Conveniently I could see St Albans and report back on movement there. It was clear that things were slowly getting back to working at 21:45 but it was also clear that staying at St Pancras would not have been a good choice. I could also see Peterborough and report on the approach of his connecting train which was running around 5 mins late due to a delayed previous service.

Anyway, he got to Leicester safely if a little later than expected and I hope he didn’t wake his girlfriend up when he got in as I’m sure she must have been in bed by that stage 😅 I was taking the mickey the next morning when I joked that he’d spent 20mins at Peterborough and seen 4 freight trains 😅 A friend of his was due to travel later and abandoned his trip because it was way too crowded for him to board a train and he accepted the offer of using his ticket the following day – train companies will usually offer this option and it might be your best choice so bear it in mind.

Bear in mind that the station staff will always do their best to provide up to date info and guidance – be polite to them as they may be your lifeline home. I should also add – always see what the official National Rail Enquiries is saying about disruptions – The information there is often key to getting home safe and sound. And please don’t be the Jerk who starts cursing the person who just died as being inconsiderate – yes there are some that do that – just don’t be that asshole!