‘Seem to be regular services, but very empty; no more than 15 people in this carriage…’ My text from Monday morning said it all. It’s all very pretty, but the reported 18 years’ worth of snow that fell over the east of the country on Sunday evening caused predictable travel chaos. The last two mornings have seen a flurry of early activity, as we tried to find out what was happening with travel arrangements to get into work. With my offices reportedly open for business as usual, I did my best and got on an early service into town.
Except I didn’t get that far. The journey to Liverpool Street took over 90 minutes, and on the way I learned that the office was in fact closed for the day. So, I rode the exact same train home, and worked there, watching the chickens scrabbling around the run, perplexed by the icy white stuff. Even though it was around 10.30am when I unlocked the front door (around three hours since I’d closed it behind me), the time on the train wasn’t entirely wasted.
Bits and bobs of work had been completed as the train zizzed through the scenic white countryside, and with only around 15 fellow commuters in the carriage, it was probably the best train journey into London I’ve had all year. As I stood on the platform for almost an hour and waited for four trains to arrive and depart this morning, though, today was arguably worse. But, I can report that there were no delays to report en-route, and I got to work just before 10.30am.
We’d feared that if we’d got in yesterday, the situation travelling home could have been an unknown quantity. Whether that was the thought of the majority of commuters travelling into London, I don’t know, but pavement traffic was notably down today, and there were only half the people in office than usual. The journey home was both on time and quick, but it seemed eerily quiet outside, just as it was on Monday, when the the only noise was the sphat-sphat of the snow landing on my umbrella.
Tags: Journal