Buffet-ed

We finished the marking during the morning, so I was able to get away on the 13:40 train. Due to further atrocious weather both east and west coast train routes to Scotland had been closed yesterday pm, but the W coast line was allegedly open for business again.

After the usual change at Crewe onto the Edinburgh train, things started to unravel. There was an announcement telling us that the train would only go as far as Carlisle and then we would get onto a replacement bus service, due to overhead cables being down. Then a few minutes later we were told that our train would be 'terminated' at Preston in order to 'thin out the timetable'. Waited for half an hour at Preston for the next train which claimed to be heading to Scotland (Glasgow, this one) a it would be 'terminated' in due course at Carlisle. Then an announcement that the line north of Carlisle had reopened - hmm, was it best to stay on the Glasgow train and switch stations in Glasgow, or wait for the next Edinburgh train? (Stop me if I'm boring you.) I opted for the latter, but unfortunately there were too many of us to fit on it, as it was only one of the Trans-Pennine cattle-trucks trains. So I waited in the Carlisle station buffet for a subsequent Edinburgh train. It eventually arrived and I even got a seat, but the driver/crew had come to the end of their shift so it had to wait in the station for half an hour until a train came down from Glasgow with a spare driver!

This is the lovely wooden ceiling in the buffet at Carlisle - I had probably rolled my eyes upwards in despair. I should by now have been looking at this ceiling, but there were another couple of hours to go before I got back to Edinburgh where the lovely Mr H met me and bought me a pint of much needed beer.

This ceiling puts me in mind of my dad who travelled the same trainline many times all the way from Leamington Spa up to Dumfries where he was at boarding school. If the train timetables worked in their favour the boys could sometimes nip out into Carlisle for a tea and scones before getting the connection to Dumfries; they knew it would be the last decent food they would taste for a couple of months. But he must have sometimes had to make do with the railway buffet.