Too Much Detail - Again! 11.02.08

It has been a strange morning. Long before 6am Robbie came to sit on the bed to chat about trains. Apparently he has been offered the chance to be involved with another charter trip, he rambled on about tractors, but I'm fairly sure he was talking about engines rather than Massey Ferguson's or John Deere's. He wanted his pass signed and he obviously thought he would need to grovel, but at that time of the morning I wasn't too interested in what he was planning to do, it was the free 'respite' that attracted my attention. I readily agreed, in fact I even asked if he could stay a bit longer!

I took Emily to Kettering station at just after 6am and Robbie came with us as he was heading for a meeting in London. He talked non stop about train timetables all the way to Kettering and every attempt to shut him up proved futile. Just before I dropped them off at Kettering Robbie announced that it was his 10th anniversary, ten years since he started working for CrossCountry. The journey to Kettering was OK but the journey back was more challenging because thick fog had developed in the short time since I drove there, I don't enjoy driving in fog.

I received an excited phone call from Robbie when he got to St Pancras. Believe it or not he actually rang just to tell me that the toilets at the station were now free!! He obviously took full advantage of the facilities because he described them in great detail. My week will be so much better for knowing that!

Busy Going Nowhere! 19.11.07

Here we go again, for the third Monday in a row there was an engineering overrun so the first train to leave Northampton heading towards Birmingham was the 7.22 Northampton - Liverpool which finally departed at 8.21! Robbie was such a joy to talk to this morning!! He was absolutely livid about being delayed again. Maybe the delay was caused by contractors, but that doesn't absolve Network Rail from responsibility. The blame rests with them because it is down to them to make sure that these sort of things don't happen, and there is absolutely no excuse for this occurring three weeks in a row. They don't understand plain English, so it is futile to hope that they realise how much ill will episodes like this generate. Perhaps it is just as well that they couldn't read Robbie's mind!

On the subject of Robbie, I am surprised to find that he is not the only person who obsesses about the toilets on trains! I came across a whole blog entry on the subject
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/christopherhowse/nov07/makes-the-going-easy.htm

I like to look at other peoples websites and blogs from time to time and this one always gets me on my soapbox because it is about Worst Great Western and it deals with some of the wider issues affecting the railways. It is also very well written and it manages to make me smile even when dealing with some really serious subjects.

http://firstgreatwestern.blogspot.com/2007/05/foolish-consistency.html

Here is one last blog that is well worth a visit. He writes about railway stuff as well as all sorts of other things. Have a look at his entry for Thursday 15th November 07 about the opening of St Pancras International. There is a lovely picture of the statue of John Betjeman, I really have to go to St Pancras just to see that statue. John Betjeman was one of my heroes. He campaigned and battled to save St Pancras and we owe him a great deal.

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/