HackPacker

Well, I am sat at Carlisle station - somewhere I had not expected to be - staring at staff cleaning out the carriages of the famous Pullman train on the Settle line. I would, of course, rather be St Bees as expected. However, rail bosses decided otherwise.

It didn't take long for plans laid months in advance to go off thye rails. My wife Alison waved me off from Faversham station on the 6.38am heading for London. Shortly after we drew to a halt. Some twat had driven their car into a rail bridge near Rochester and we couldn' go on until an engineer had proclaimed it structurally sound.

Surprisingly, it took just 13 minutes. But it might as well have taken two hours for the havoc it caused to my schedule. At Victoria, they announced the Victoria Line was shut on the Tube. The diversion meant I was literally one minute late for the connection.

I switched onto a Virgin train to Edinburgh hoping to catch up a bit by changing at Lancaster. We were due to arrive six minutes before the connecgtion left. But "congestion around Wolverhapton" thwarted that plan and I was forced to go on to Carlisle. The upshot is that the twat in the car means that - barring another delay - I will get in just under two hours late.

I just hope the drivers in Cumbria are more thoughtful when they approach railway bridges.