103 Not Out: Detrainment

Is this the only country in Europe that can’t cope with any type of weather varying from the norm? It snows, our schools close. It’s sunny, our roads melt. It’s rainy, our trains stop.
We had a pretty windy and rainy night, and given what I've just told you, I was surprised to see the trains running completely to schedule.

A rainy platform:I’ve now been sitting on a stationary train for over forty minutes. We were going along quite nicely before the train suddenly stopped and the lights went out (somewhere near the M25). It was announced that the wind had brought the power cables down and that ‘we weren’t gonna be going nowhere for a while’. The deadly silence of the morning commute was suddenly interrupted by voices calling the office (‘The train’s just stopped. We were literally running nicely and then the cables came down’ [the train was literally running?]). Some workmen arrived a little while ago. I’m debating whether or not to drink my bottle of water... I don’t want to be stuck needing the toilet in case we’re here for a while... We’ve now been here over an hour. Hmm... It’s kinda cool how the ol’ East End atmosphere comes in after a while. No-one usually speaks on a morning commute, but if this goes on much longer, we’ll all be sitting around the ol’ Johanna doing the Lambeth Walk (Oi!) and eating pork scratchings.

Nothing’s happening. This is the view from my window. I’ve had a long time to examine it. Ok, he’s just announced that a new train is coming with some extra staff to help him (?). Then another train will come and they’re going to ‘transfer us’. Right, this is going to be good.

(Forty minutes later) The girls next to me have started playing the Bluetooth game now. Apparently I’m sitting on the train with a Big Daddy and some Hot Lips.

This is going to be exciting. The driver has just told us that the extra staff have arrived:
Apparently we’ll be transferred soon... He’s asked us to wait a little longer (not a lot of choice there). In a few minutes he’ll explain how the transfer will work (!). Apparently we’re going to be – and I quote – detrained in ten minutes. That’s a first.

Well, I’ve been detrained now. And it turns out that detraining is a technical term for climbing out of the driver’s door one by one (easier said than done), jumping down onto the track, crossing over the track and climbing into the next train. They’re doing it carriage by carriage. We were the first. This is going to take a long time.

Detraining 1.1:

Detraining 1.2 (My finger covered the lens in all the excitement):
Man, I got on this train two and a half hours ago. Still detraining. Just found out that the power lines actually came down on the train – apparently it was quite scary for the people in that carriage. But that was why we were unable to move forwards or backwards to the closest station.

Someone just phoned in to work and I’m sure they asked to speak to Susan McNaughty. Evidently, the guy sitting next to me is trying to get the word ‘disembark’ into his phone conversation as many times as possible.

For future reference, detraining takes well over an hour.

On the move! I left my station three and a half hours ago.

And we arrive in London. A one hour trip has taken over four, I’ve missed my lessons anyway and I’m going to treat myself to a chocolate chip shortbread biscuit. Which, to be honest, wasn’t All That Great.

And that was my train journey.