Despite being my day off, Friday has been rather stressful. More snow fell in the night, just enough to cover the roads and the cars. They had been cleared after the previous snow fall a couple of days ago but the roads were slushy and reluctant drivers had to spend time clearing snow from their cars before taking to the road. It was very cold, the sort of day when you want to stay at home in front of the fire. In fact Dave the cat made sure that he had the warmest spot in the house all day and he made it quite clear that he had no intention of moving.
Robbie was working from home, so we didn't need to go far, but my daughters had to drive to work and my son had to brave the elements to walk to school. I hoped there would be no more snow because I had to take David (my step father) to a hospital appointment in the afternoon. The snow continued falling all morning and the roads became more dangerous, so we took the decision to postpone his appointment. He is frail due to his kidney cancer and he walks with two sticks (he has had two hip replacements), so I was very worried about him falling and hurting himself. I think he was quite relieved not to have to go out in the snow.
By early afternoon the buses had stopped running and reports of traffic chaos filled the news broadcasts. One daughter was already home, but she was worried about her boyfriend who had to drive back from Cranfield and I was worried about my other daughter who would not be able to drive home from her teaching placement at Corby until her school closed. Eventually both arrived home safely, apparently it took three hours to get back from Cranfield and my daughter took almost as long to get back from Corby.
We need to get our local planning sorted out, the world shouldn't grind to a halt every time we have a couple of inches of snow, but that is a problem for another day. At least all my family are home safely for the weekend.
We have had a lovely Christmas this year, nice food to eat, nice presents, but most important of all we were able to enjoy time with the people we love. We always have good intentions but life can be so busy that far too long can slip by without us spending quality time with family and friends. So the Christmas break has been especially important to us, we have enjoyed special moments with our wider family. It is rare that we are all together at the same time so that makes it extra special. After all the activity and chaos of Christmas, Robbie and I appreciated a few days of quiet with nothing much to do and all day to do it. Usually our days start very early, so not being ruled by the alarm clock has been fantastic and I think it has done us both good to have time to unwind. Despite all the pre Christmas stress, I have really enjoyed this Christmas break and I will be sorry to see Robbie return to work tomorrow.
I am not a fan of new year celebrations. It always seems rather sad to be closing the door on the old year and I look ahead to the new year with a certain amount of trepidation, wondering what new worries and challenges it has in store. It is odd really as I am not a pessimist and I tend to take most of the ups and downs of life in my stride, I think mostly it is just fear of the unknown. Every year the world changes a little bit, situations change, new people come into our lives and some become very important, and sadly other people are lost from our lives. As the year draws to a close we remember the familiar faces no longer with us who have brightened our lives in various ways. We may not know them personally but we are touched by their loss and we will miss them. Perhaps I am just getting old but it seems to me that we have said too many goodbyes in the last year. Among those that I will miss most are George Baker who brought Inspector Wexford to life, Jimmy Saville because there was no one quite like him, Peter Falk because I loved Colombo, David Croft who wrote Dads Army as well as other great comedy shows and brought so much pleasure, Billie Jo Spears because I loved her voice, and Edward Hardwicke who I will always think of as Dr Watson.
It will not surprise those who know me that Robbie and I do not always agree. We are quite capable of arguing about everything from politics to pet care, but when you get beyond the bickering our views are not significantly different. It is just that Robbie is less willing to be outspoken than I am -yes really! I can tolerate people spouting drivel as long as I don't have to listen. I can accept their right to believe passionately in the most ridiculous things, but if they try to impose their batty beliefs on me they will get their answer loud and clear - even the Jehovah's Witnesses have blacklisted our house! The thing that really gets me wound up is when one group gets so forceful about asserting their rights that their actions have a devastating effect on others, including those more vulnerable and less able to assert their 'rights'.
That brings me on to a name which has fast become a swear word among many of it's customers - London Midland. If you type the words 'London Midland chaos' or 'London Midland Disruption', you will find countless examples of delayed or cancelled services and services that terminated before their expected destination. Their name has become synonimous with disruption, chaos and unreliability. The the drivers dispute which has been causing havock for passengers is supposedly at an end. There have been various promises about normal service being resumed from yesterday. It is that little word 'normal' that bothers me because 'normal' for London Midland is not a good customer experience. Yesterday Robbie's journey to work was one of the worst yet. I would be much more reassured if they said that they would be running the full timetabled service, on time and with working toilets. Come to think of it I wouldn't believe them even if they said that!!
Like so many others Robbie has has had a terrible time trying to get to and from work. Often it took three times as long as it should and it required considerable ingenuity to get there or to get home again. It was exhausting and extremely worrying. I understand that the drivers have issues, of course they want to be paid well for what they do. I am not anti union (but I am deeply unimpressed by the way some unions behave) and I understand that this problem is not all one sided, the company should have sorted this out long ago. In fact the faceless bods at DFT who make totally batty decisions about franchise allocation should have foreseen the problems of harmonising the pay and conditions of workers who joined the new franchise from two different companies. It is simply not good enough to treat passengers so badly.
Needless to say the chaos has generated a lot of frustration and there has been plenty of heated discussion on facebook. I was pleasantly surprised to find that even some fellow railway employees did not support the recent action. One person wrote (not a direct quote as it was necessary to tone down the language) They need to get their heads banged together. For too long the insulated world of train crew have been taking advantage of at the people who employ them as well the poor passengers stood on platforms waiting for a non-running service. A fortnight working hard in a different job would be enough to make them appreciate just how fortunate they really are.
It seems the drivers have got their deal, but at what cost. What about the people who have had to drive to work or to university because the train service is so unreliable, what about the countless people who lost pay because their train was cancelled or terminated short. Did the drivers give a thought to the people who were terrified of losing their job because they just couldn't get to work on time. I wonder if they cared that the passengers that they messed about so badly will get no meaningful compensation. It is great for the drivers that they have got what they wanted, but at what cost?
I'm sorry, I'm still going on about trains, but there was yet another problem with the West Coast Mainline yesterday! I couldnt resist quoting from this article in The Times Rail expansion grinds to a halt as power line faults cause chaos Last December Network Rail promised that a new timetable would “herald a step change in the frequency and speed of train services” unfortunately we didn't realise that meant more delays and chaos than ever! The article made me laugh out loud, Network Rail really make themselves look ridiculous The company has stopped carrying out daylight inspections of the lines and does them at night instead to avoid closing tracks during the day. An industry source said that it was much harder to spot defects at night.
It is so cold, the snow from Monday is still hanging around, and where the roads and pavements have not been gritted it has become solid slippery ice. Robbie fell over and hurt his back on his way home from work this evening, it is hurting him but he seems to be able to move fairly freely so hopefully it will not get any worse. He'd had a difficult journey to work this morning, there were delays and cancellations apparently this was due to a broken rail somewhere near Birmingham and there were diversions in place as well due to a problem with overhead lines on the Trent Valley.. I He finally got to work just after 11am! I could tell by his texts that he was totally frustrated, the word 'farce' in capital letters was used in every sentence. His return journey was equally frustrating, and he didn't get home until 8.30pm! Tomorrow looks even worse in terms of rail travel because Robbie has just informed me that there are problems on the West Coast Mainline again, this time it is overhead wire problems at Bletchley and more overhead wire problems at Watford. It looks as if Network Rail tempted fate on 14th December last year an unknown Network Rail spokesman boasted "The achievement is massive and the result will be a quantum leap in services." and Iain Coucher said "Now it is complete passengers and freight operators will reap the benefits". Well it has certainly been a quantum leap – in the wrong direction! I think George the cat has the right idea – get as close to the fire as possible and stay there!
Well this is the first sensible response to last week's rail chaos that I have come accross. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/01/07/ccrail107.xmlIan Coucher Network Rail chief executive was totally invisible last week and I had come to the conclusion that he was just a hologram, but he has surfaced now that the fuss has died down and he is buisily engaged in passing the buck! I think even Houdini would struggle to get out of this one. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/01/07/cnrail107.xml
I think they are trying to take over my life, it seems that I can't get away from conversations about Network Rail. I was happily driving along at 7.15am listening to Today on Radio 4 when they turned to the subject of rail disruption over the Christmas and New Year period. A chap called Kevin Groves from Network Rail was dragged out of bed to defend the indefensible. All the women in the country will know that he was talking out of the wrong end because he did that tell tale man thing of stuttering and his voice steadily becoming higher. Robbie does it when I ask him to justify why he needed to buy yet another tie and my brother does it all the time when he is losing an argument. Anyway this chap had to justify the very late decision of Network Rail to extend an engineering possession on the West Coast Mainline beyond the period specified originally, thus causing chaos to passengers and severe headaches for Virgin. I must give him credit for stating the blindingly obvious 'we have made a mistake' that may be the first time that Network Rail have ever made such an admission so there is novelty value in the words used, but there is depressing familiarity in the situation they were trying to excuse!
I think Kevin Groves needs a bit of media training, or perhaps he just needs to think twice about agreeing to such an early interview, because I suspect he may have made a few enemies at Virgin when he suggested that their customers should use rival train operating companies whose routes were unaffected. He failed to mention anything about replacement bus services and he completely overlooked the predicament of the poor old season ticket holders on a normal working day. Perhaps he also needs to think a little more about the way that he words things, his constant reference to doing 'big jobs' at Rugby will have conjured up unpleasant images in the minds of the young (and not so young) listeners! Couldn't they just have a week when they do everything right!!
This article contains a nice quote from Chris Gibb http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3075738.ece
Robbie had terrible journeys to and from work yesterday. His train arrived at the station more or less on time in the morning but it remained rooted to the spot for over 40 minutes as it lacked one vital ingredient - train crew. Apparently there was some sort of obstruction at Coventry and they had been stranded. His homeward journey departed on time but it terminated at Rugby due to multiple signal failure. I received a series of increasingly frustrated calls from Robbie, but eventually they were on the move again and Robbie estimated that he would be at Northampton by 7.35pm. I was having my own day from hell, car problems, road works causing massive delays and children needing me to be in two different places at the same time, but I agreed to collect him. More phone calls and the time was gradually pushed back, until at 8pm I had to abandon my wait for Robbie and dash across town to pick up Sam from his school. He had been helping at a parents evening as a science representative. He should have been ready by 8.15pm at the latest, but after the impossibility of trying to park I found that he still wasn't ready, and after waiting around for 20 minutes I had to get extremely assertive to force someone to go and find him. Having got into the car park, getting out again was even more of a challenge!
Finally I was able to head back to pick Robbie up, his train had eventually arrived at 8.20pm - two hours late! He was now cold, tired and ravenously hungry. I expected him to be furious about the chaos, but thankfully his spirits had been lifted slightly because his missing trousers and his new briefcase had been delivered to work that day. I'd been quietly insistent about Robbie needing a briefcase on wheels because he gets so much pain in his back and legs, but I had to wait until Robbie accepted the idea and ordered it himself! He made a very good choice, he is almost as fascinated by briefcases and bags as he is by trains and he spent a very long time telling me about all the features of the bag - apparently it even has a light inside!
By the time I got Robbie and Sam home, I didn't even have time for a cup of tea before I had to go out again to collect Laura. It must have been about 10.40 before I finally got home. Robbie was still talking about trains and in the course of his very detailed account of his home bound journey, he explained that the progress between Rugby and Northampton was painfully slow because the hand signaller had to walk ahead before the train could leave. After a day like that, a completely different kind of hand signal sprang to mind!
What a day! The gale force winds came as predicted and our newly repaired fence went from the vertical to the horizontal. That's what happens when you rely on 'Bob the Builder' to fix the fence! We also lost a few tiles from the roof - and my bank account lost hope. Even if we can claim something on the insurance policy, replacing the fence and repairing the roof will cost a fortune. There was lots of damage in the area near our home too, we have a lovely park not far away and a number of trees have fallen down including a lovely mature tree that has been completely uprooted.
Robbie had to go back to Leeds today so he was up at the crack of dawn to be at the station just after 6am. I wasn't too happy about it because it was already very windy and there were already speed restrictions in place so it didn't seem sensible to go all the way to Leeds and end up stranded. He agreed to leave early in order to get home at a reasonable hour as the speed restrictions would make his journey much slower.
Robbie caught his train to return from Leeds at 2.10pm. It finally arrived in Birmingham 344 minutes late, it had been stopped by obstructions and accidents three times so it had to be taken back to York and eventually managed to get to Birmingham via Doncaster. I am writing this at 10.40pm and he is still on his way home, he is now on a train to Northampton and he hopes to reach the station by 11.30pm. I have been worried about him, but I also feel cross because the entire episode was avoidable. The gales had been predicted for a couple of days, there were already speed restrictions in place and chaos was the inevitable result. Yet he still chose to travel and the train operating companies were still happily selling day return tickets when the odds of arriving at their destination were not good and the chance of getting home again was minimal. Surely we should expect more in the way of joined up thinking from the train operating companies.
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