delay

Commuter Life When I began commuting again, for some reason I assumed that in the three or four years since I was doing the Liverpool-Manchester-Liverpool grind that the train service might have improved. Huh. No. If anything it's worse. Even though I'm catching the train at different times every day, during rush hour, which I'd put between four and six-thirty the train is delayed either by a few minutes or as happened tonight, a full half an hour.

Even less hilariously, the reasons for the delays haven't changed either. It's going to be a signal failure; the express was stuck behind a local service at some time during the trip through from Norwich or Scarborough; it's waiting for a different delayed train (usually the Blackpool or Southport service) to leave its usual platform designation of two or even more ignominious the stopping train for Liverpool leaves a minute or two before it and we'll be stuck behind that, which means the one which is naturally slow is making ours even slower.

If I didn't know any better I'd say it was some kind of conspiracy between the train operators and mobile phone companies. Because as soon as the usual delay announcement happens passengers are calling home to say they're going to be late. Sometimes they'll do this multiple times over the half hour that the train doesn't arrive. I've done it, if needed. Really I can't remember or know what happened before the invention of communication in the pocket, but Orange and T-Mobile must be making a fortune. Some of the highest tariffs can be around teatime -- I wonder why.

But I just keep rubbing my temples and saying quietly "I'm back at university ... I'm doing what I've always wanted ... it's only half an hour here and there ... read a book ..." But really it's very disappointing and shouldn't be that way. Why should a train service running on time be an exception rather than a rule -- what's the point in having a timetable if you're not going to keep to it?

OK, kvetch over. I'll return to linking to interviews by Emma Brockes of The Guardian. Oh, look, there's one ...