Great Western Coffee Shop

That we are making all the progress of an asthmatic tortoise - this is because you would get more power out of a hairdryer than we are getting out of our engines.

Is what the guard should have said rather than the usual crap. I give up.

Now we're stuck outside of Charlbury seemingly unable to go forwards or backwards......


(edited to correct typos now actually made it to work)

We inched forward - we edged backward - driver got out and kicked a few things - quick call to Bangalore technical support and we made Finstock where something else needed a kick or two .   Finally the tortoise is limping into Oxford.

(Edited to correct typos

And rub salt in wound - am now on what would be the 0735 from wos - I could have gone to sleep in the car - I'm getting good at that

Engine problems leading to only about 50% power, then a progressive problem with the parking brake (equivalent to the handbrake) on both carriages - very unusual fault that. Not helped at all by the previous HST being cancelled.

Yeah - when he was standing outside the carriage on the phone to Bangalore we heard him say "this is an odd one"

I think the Moral of the story is - if you want to get somewhere on time, find out what train I would catch/what I would do - and do the opposite