Not Quite the Wrong Type of Snow

A short entry, just to explain the bizarre reasoning the rail network is now giving for delayed trains.

It was suppposed to be a 4 hour trip from Southampton to Manchester. Everything was running smoothly until we arrived at Birmingham International station and we sat there for a while:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we apologise for the slight delay to the running of this train. This is due to a disabled passenger requiring assistance but the ramp is currently in use on another platform."

Ok, you can't begrudge a wheel chair passenger requiring a ramp, but you'd think Birmingham International would have more than one to go round.

One station later, Birmingham New Street. Again we pulled in, but again we just sat there:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we apologise for the slight delay to the running of this train. This is due to us waiting for a member of staff to get on board."

A member of staff?!? Which one? The driver? The buffet attendant? A guard? I hope they got disciplined soon afterwards for adding 15 minutes to the journey.

But we eventually moved on and then it was through Wolverhampton. As we pulled away we drifted to a stop in the middle of nowhere:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we apologise for the delay to the running of this train. This is due to trespassers on the line."

We never heard anymore about who or what was trespassing, I took the assumption it was kids or perhaps a rogue cow had strayed onto the line - it just meant in total we pulled into the final destination 45 minutes late....

...Good job I had a window seat with a power socket and my portable DVD player with me.