Connecting trains

I had a day trip, on the train, to visit my grandson (and his mum) at their home on the North East coast.

Returning home, I arrived at the station early. I often do. I don’t like to rush to catch a train and I don’t mind waiting, watching others rush. I bought my tea from M&S. I love a train journey, and don’t mind delays if I’ve got a decent book.

I did have a decent book, I’m enjoying it on Audible: Miss Bensons Beetle. I couldn’t listen to it. I discovered on the journey that there’s no headphone jack on my new phone. It’s time to upgrade to Bluetooth.

My train from Newcastle was delayed just sufficiently that it seemed I would arrive in York in time to see the tail lights of my local train. In the days of British Rail, a local train would be held if the intercity was delayed.

It was cold and it was dark. I wanted to get home. I’d had an early start. I tweeted northern rail asking what was the chance the local service might wait.

My first tweet was ignored; I had tweeted northern railways India, they couldn’t help.

I deleted and retweeted the more local northern rail. They wouldn’t help.
No they said, it’s only an hour till the next one.

The train pulled in on platform 3; there was less than 2 minutes to cross the bridge to platform 8. I told myself that some can run a mile in less than 4 minutes; this short run should not be a challenge to a running granny.

The train slowed then stopped. The doors opened at their leisure. Back in the day, we didn’t need to wait for the train to stop before we opened the door. Life’s safer now.

I leaped and ran. Not easy running in a mask. A man carrying a suitcase stopped right in front of me at the top of the stairs. I dodged around him, kept running over the bridge.

I made it onto the local train and heard the guard shouting to others following me down the stairs. I tweeted back to northern rail; yes, this granny runs. Maybe not a 4 minute mile, but definitely a useful pace.