So after a lovely day out yesterday, we had a bit of a dreadful journey home. We had three connecting trains to catch, and the first two, Penkridge-Stafford and Stafford-Nuneaton went by with only slight delays, but as we had an hour to wait for our connection from Nuneaton to Cambridge a 15 minute delay wasn't a problem. So we decided to venture out and get something to eat in Nuneaton. The only place open on a Sunday night was a fried chicken and kebab shop, so we got some chips and some chicken wings. They were really quite nasty, and I only ate one! But our train was due to arrive in Cambridge at just gone 10pm, so I thought I'd stop at the Tesco which closes at 11 on the way home.
Out Cross Country train to Cambridge departed Nuneaton 15 minutes late, and all seemed fine until we got to somewhere just beyond Stamford. The train stopped, and for 15 minutes there was no explanation of why. Then there was an announcement to say that there was a points failure ahead and we needed to wait until that was fixed. 25 minutes after we stopped, we were thankfully on the move again. However, outside March there were more problems, this time with the signalling. Slowly we trundled on, and had another explained wait just outside Ely. I expect there were also points problems there but we made it through. By the time we approached Cambridge the train was about an hour and a half behind schedule. We were almost with sight of the station (about half a mile away I think) when the train stopped again. Another points failure was announced, and we waited half an hour while it was fixed, within walking distance of home. By this time were were really hungry and also the toilets on the train were in such an appalling state that they were not fit to use.
Finally, at midnight, nearly two hours late, the train arrived in Cambridge. A long queue of people waited at an empty taxi rank. Some of them had missed their last connection home and were facing even worse problems than us. At least we were just a walk away from warmth and bed! We walked home though the deep snow via a garage to get some much needed food and actually rather enjoyed it. People were out in the streets enjoying themselves and making snowmen, even at gone midnight and there was a party atmosphere. We collapsed into bed at 1am!
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Journeys like that are awful, aren't they? Good that you were able to get some fun out of it, though. You might be able to claim compensation for the train being more than an hour late, possibly up to the value of the tickets.
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