No chuffin trains

I am a little peeved to say the least. You may remember I said I was going to get a Rail Card with my Tesco vouchers. Well I applied, and my card arrived in the post. Whoopeeee, now I can have lots of days out on the train, and save a third of the cost of a ticket on every trip. So I started eagerly planning my first trip, to Sheffield, haven't been there for ages, should be a good day.

Now look what's happened, there has been a chuffin landslide and the railway lines have collapsed, causing major disruption to services. Trains from Scunthorpe go to Doncaster, because it is a major station where passengers change to go in all directions. Halfway between, near Hatfield, is where the tracks have fallen apart, so no chuffin trains are leaving Scunthorpe. It is estimated that the work will take up to eight weeks to put it right. Looking at the photo on the poster, it is my bet that it could take longer than that. That is mega damage, they're going to need massive cranes, huge digger machines, and hundreds of tipper truck journeys bringing in hundreds of tons of that stuff they put under the tracks.

So, we are effectively cut off from the rest of the country, our links are severed, our trains are stranded and aint goin nowhere. See the red dots, that is where the railway line should be. This is going to cost East Coast Rail millions, or is it Network Rail who will be paying, they own the tracks. Either way I hope they are well insured.

So what next. Well, they do have a plan 'B'. They have organised a fleet of buses to go backwards and forwards. So you go to the station as normal, buy your ticket, and get on a bus. The journey to Doncaster by road takes longer than by rail, and they say that people travelling further afield will make their connections because they have allowed for the extra time needed. That's good to know if you are travelling to the other side of the country, like I will be doing next month. But I want to have some days out on the train now. I have my Rail Card now. By the time I have spent the extra time on the bus, added to the train journey, will it be worth me bothering. By the time I get there I will have to come back. Oh, flippin heck and chuffin fiddlesticks. They are going on about the new high speed train which is coming in about twenty years time, but what about us up here in the sticks, we haven't got a chuffin train at all now. 

Toodle pip.