Lining Up

Action at East End Park where I saw Dundee United visit league leaders Dunfermline. Although the free kick didn't directly produce a goal, the passage of play eventually led to the best United goal of the game, with a cracking half-volley from outside the box by Fraser Fyvie. My first United game for a while and after some recent lacklustre performances they seemed to get their act together and won 3-1. And the Dunfermline goal was a late consolation when the game seemed won. Although, being United there was a brief period when you feared they would blow it all and concede a second, which would no doubt have led to a third. Fortunately the team overcame their jitters and saw out the rest of the game without further goals. A big crowd, relatively speaking. Seven and a half thousand, making it the third biggest of the day in Scotland and more than were at Dens for the game against Hearts in the Premiership, as well as two other top flight fixtures. Perhaps the pressure got to Dunfermline as they seemed much poorer than their league position might imply.
Getting there and back was something of an adventure. Trains were cancelled out of Waverley, at first for some vague ' incident' which later became 'safety inspections' and 'points issues'. The cancellations started early, about 8:15am, when L was on a train to Glasgow. She did manage to leave about an hour late, but cancellations were then mounting up. By the time I got to the station to buy my ticket the Fife service was down to one an hour. Still enough time to get to the game. Of course it was running late when it did eventually leave so it was a bit of a rush to get to the ground and I missed the first few minutes of the match but fortunately none of the goals. Getting back there was supposed to be a 5:30ish train but it had been cancelled by the time I got to the station a bit after five and the next one was on the board for 18:09. Got myself some tea from the chip shop across the road - the advantage of a mobile phone in an unfamiliar place as I knew exactly where to go from the station. But just after six the train disappeared from the board and the next one was now after seven. Someone in the waiting room suggested getting a bus so a few of us walked to the stop and sure enough a bus to Edinburgh finally appeared. The fare was more than my return had been, but at least it got me back, and across the new bridge for the first time. Apparently the rail chaos continued through the evening. Which, given it was all blamed on points between Waverley and Haymarket, does rather call into question the robustness of the system. Why was there such a knock on effect in Fife and beyond if it was just a short bit of track in the centre of Edinburgh? Obviously it is due to the placement of rolling stock but couldn't some trains have terminated at Haymarket instead, or even out at Edinburgh Gateway, where you could transfer to a tram to get into the city centre? And what caused the problem on the track in the first place - they remain vague but was it vandalism or more cable thefts? How secure is the network? What if it had been a weekday - what would the impact be on the Scottish economy? How much can you expect from a rail service provider in terms of resilience. Obviously a more resilient service costs more but if there are sufficient financial penalties in not providing the service promised then it would be cost effective, like a form of insurance.
Extra picture of my Swiss friend and relatively recent blipper RealSandee, who I met on the way to getting my train, in the middle of her adoptive city.