Going nowhere

We’ve had a lovely few days with Jo and Greg and here they were at 5pm today climbing aboard the Appleby train to Leeds, to connect with the train to London.

Except that . . . this train was going nowhere.

Because of a ‘power failure’ down the line, trains were being stopped in Appleby. There didn’t seem to be any idea as to what was to happen to the passengers . . . no one knew. There was talk of a generator, a bus replacement service, but no real answer. Bottles of water were provided - totally unnecessary at this point. We were going to take our two to Carlisle to get a London train from there, but there seemed to be delays and cancellations on that line (there always are, which is why we don’t use it).

In the end we drove to Skipton, from where there would hopefully be more options for trains to Leeds. Joanne was keeping a watch on trains and found cancellations, probably because several of the trains were still in Appleby!

But we arrived at Skipton station anyway to find there was one Leeds train, which they got on. If it was on time, they would have a few minutes to change trains in Leeds, otherwise it would probably mean staying the night in Leeds and catching the early morning London train, not ideal as they both have a lot of work to do on Tuesday.

As we drove home in the sunshine on empty roads, we were relieved to get a message to say they had managed to get the train, an hour later than the one they had planned, but that’s good after all the problems.

And we got this photo (extra). When we had Sunday lunch at Heft, they had had beef and it came in slices for them to share. It was delicious but there was too much. So it was packed up and put into this bag, which we all thought was rather clever. This afternoon the slices were made into sandwiches and other stuff added to make up a packed tea. They were very happy to be eating this on the London train hours later - a lifesaver.