A Trilogy of Trains

If you see this series as ‘Lord of the Rings’ then this is the thrilling conclusion to the story. If you think of this collection more like ‘Back to the Future’ then this is the weakest of the three with a mixed plot including some strange wild west space theme. If you’re thinking that this series more of a Star Wars classic then you are sadly deluded and I don’t know that you should read any further without seeking help.

At my local station we even got a sneak preview of the queuing system we’d be expected to stand in for 20 minutes each morning.

And then came Monday morning. The alarm went off 45 minutes earlier and, with some trepidation, I made my way to the station. There was some of those crowd control people I previously mentioned, lined-up to help the masses form an orderly queue. But there was a problem with all the planning: there were no crowds. For most of the time, I’ve had a seat on a partially empty train at a time I was warned I’d have to queue. Pulling into Clapham Junction station at around 7am would usually find a platform crowded with commuters trying to find a space: this week more people got off the train at Clapham than got on. It was emptier leaving the station than it was on approach. People have vanished.

If you were expecting some kind of thrilling denouement to the train trilogy, sadly, Network Rail, South West Trains and South Western Railway look like they’ve managed the whole thing rather well considering that to do the work hundreds of trains had to be cut and thousands of people had to change their plans.

Well done everyone.

Footnotes

(1) Modern Railways, August 2017, p7

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