I had to go up the Smoke yesterday afternoon. I never bother to drive into
London, so went down to the railway station, where I discovered that the
rail system had been thrown into disarray by unexpected winter weather in
January. My train had been cancelled, but as another train had been
terminated at the station and morphed into the train that should have left
an hour before it, I actually only left the station 10 minutes later than
expected, although the train was 70 minutes late.

There were a few stops, watching other trains pass, until our train was
joined with another at Haywards Heath, from where it was to make the final
run to London. then we waited .. and waited ... and waited, until we were
told that the train we were on had been cancelled, so we all had to cross to
another platform and wait for a different train. There was a four coach
train waiting, we had been told that it would leave after being joined by
another 8 coach train that was approaching the station, but, for some
reason, I was one of only two people from a 12 coach train who didn't try to
find a place in the four waiting coaches.

In article giganews.com>,
"nightjar" .me.uk> writes:

Meanwhile, yesterday, the mother of my children drove from home[0] to
South Shields for a meeting, allowed herself half an hour's slack in travel
time against holdups (Edinburgh City Bypass and A1 were involved, after
all), didn't need any of it, arrived half an hour early for the meeting
and accomplished useful business in that extra time, drove home without
holdup or incident and declared it a successful working day. Tiring, of
course, but the PT alternative was considered and wasn't at all pretty.

"Sam Nelson" ssrl.org.uk> wrote in message
news:ms8375-lai.ln1@nntp.stir.ac.uk...

So she built her own car, laid her own roads, refined her own petrol and
ofcourse being a motorist decided on her own speed limits? :-)

Paul

In article aioe.org>,
"Paul Stevenson" phonecoop.coop> writes:

No, but it's recent, and maintained according to manufacturer's specs or
better.

No, but as pointed out, slack was left in the schedule to take into account
reasonable road failures.

No, but petrol refined according to suitable standards is available from an
extremely resilient number of retail outlets.

Sam Nelson wrote:

Thus relying on others to do their job properly.

Thus relying on others to do their job properly.

In article bt.com>,
"Brimstone" yahoo.co.uk> writes:

But paying them, directly, and having a direct contract for the delivery
of the service. Show me a PT service that works that way.

Brian Whitehead hotmail.com> wrote:

The route is A538, M56, A5103, M60 (clockwise), J7, A56, Barton Road,
Trafford Park. Apart from a wait at the lights at the M60/A56 junction
there have been no holdups.

On 31 Jan, 12:47, %%ste...@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) wrote:

That's fine - I just question the implication of your statement that
congestion is not a problem in Manchester, when from personal
experience it certainly can be.

In article <1ibkxe8.1djqtie9ec2awN%%%%steve%%@malloc.co.uk>,
%%steve%%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) writes:

I can well believe that. Wave at my folks as you pass, huh? That trip by
PT would be little short of excruciating, and that new bit of M60 is pretty
flash.

Steve Firth wrote: