Aftermath of Barney

Looks very peaceful and attractive doesn't it?  Well it was.  Except it hadn't been, and then it wasn't.

Last night storm number 2 aka Barney hit the region with a vengeance and brought down the wires on the mainline between Birmingham and Coseley.  So when my trusty SHH taxi driver tried to drop me off at Sandwell and Dudley at 8am we were told that there were no trains at all and I could go and catch a tram to Wolverhampton which wouldn't get me to Shifnal where I needed to be in time so we ended up driving all the way from West Bromwich across Dudley, through Wolverhampton and our into the wilds of Shropshire all in rush hour on a day when the motorways were jammed up and there were hardly any trains running anywhere.  Anyway, I eventually got delivered to where I was meant to be all be it rather late.

Three house later I had to get home.

I was very pleased to find that my train was running to time on the way home. So that was when I took this shot, believing that all was returned to normal, my train would come speeding up that track out of the blue horizon and I would be whisked back to the metropolis. Ha Ha.  Train arrives, conductor leans our of window and says "This train will be terminating at Woverhampton."  I didn't ask why all the boards and the front of the train said it was going to Birmingham.  The 20 minute trip to Wolverhampton took an hour because there was a freight train ahead of us struggling with the slippery conditions.  We were told that there would be a train at Wolverhampton that would be going to Birmingham via a different route avoiding the blown down lines.  GREAT!  Train arrived. Different platform to where we had all been waiting, but it arrived.  Got on train.  Train starts.  Announcement that train not going via the station I wanted...

Anyway.  It's been quite a day .  Barney seems to have returned tonight.