Safely in the big smoke a fter one of GNER's more unusual events. Huttonian and the wife arriving at B-u-T station found that our train, the infamous 9.43 seemed to be going backwards and it was the same story with all other rail 'movenents' Apparently a 'massive' signal failure near Dunbar. The passengers of one abandoned train, signal struck, arrived by coach to continuue their journey south but as nothing was getting past Dunbar that did not seem likely to help. Suddenly it was announced that an extra train was scheduled to arrive at 9-43 and we should all pile onto that and we would get to Lunnon town in due course. And yes the 9.43 was not our 9.43 but some kind of Flying Dutchman doomed to wander the network for eternity but now whose time (9.43) had come.
We piled on and it was half empty-perhaps the non surviving ghostly passengers had been thrown to the sharks around Dunbar? How this extra train had got past Dunbar was never explained and after some detective work with the GNER timetable (three times at the top of the best seller fiction list b ut never a Booker winner) I established this was the very late running 7am from Glascow. Extra? Well, yes in a sense as it was not scheduled to stop at Berwick upon Tweed. So technically did not exist and we were never asked for our tickets-why? Because as the train did not stop there no passengers could not get on-so we never existed either.
Anyhow we arrived in Lunnon half an hour before the real 9.43 if an hour late for the 7am
Glascow express not calling at Berwick upon Tweed. The passengers were profusely aplogised to and wil no doubt get a massive refund. I did not quite have the bottle to apply myself as it wasn't 'my' train and actually I was early. And I couldn't have got on at B-u-T could I as the train didn't..............
The other unexplained event was the catering crew suddenly abandoned the train at Telford More aologies for possible inconveniences caused but no explanation-perhaps they had to return North for another assignment-possibly to Berwick upon Tweed and needed to catch a train that stopped there? I doubt if we will ever know.
