Snow Snow Quick Quick Snow

Well on First Great Western’s website it all looked pretty organised, even South West Trains site committed them to run two trains an hour to Bournemouth etc. But when I got to Woking station it was a whole lot more chaotic, even the reduced schedule had not survived contact with the snow; trains were running late, others cancelled, most of the screen lists simply said delayed with no suggestion of when they would run. Understandable really given the weather conditions and chatting to people, most seemed to be making their way OK, just slowly. Actually, there weren’t many people about, most had been sensible and stayed at home and this just added to the air of unreality.

Struggling against adversity seems to bring the best out in people in some ways; we talk about the Dunkerque spirit and so on. As I was staring blankly at one of the monitor screens at Woking, someone from SW Trains stopped and asked me where I was trying to go, then pointed to platform 4 but stressed the need to listen out for announcements as things were changing fast. (He was definitely right about that) Later on I saw him running up and down briefing people on the next London train; he was really trying hard. On the train to Basingstoke the train manager took one look at my ticket to Reading and grimaced – “Phew I think you’ll be lucky to get to Reading” – I didn’t like to say actually I’m trying to get to Redruth!! “I tell you what I will give them a call and get you a heads up” and he did right there and then and blessed relief a cut down service to Reading was on the go.

I hesitate to mention I got on the wrong train at Reading, got all settled down, coat off, lap top on, then I noticed it was going to Paignton not Penzance oops! Actually the Trolly Lady pointed it out to me and suggested where I should get off, in the nicest possible way; we had a nice little chat and asked me about it after the Train Manager had spoken to me; nice of her considering how worried she was about how she would get home. Random acts of kindness or did the adversity draw us a little closer to God?

The train people I spoke to all felt they had done much better than in previous snow bursts and so do I, thank you First Great Western and South West Trains for getting me there