Travel fun and games.

On one of our recent visits to Manchester to take our granddaughter to the cinema we returned by train. We had earlier met her at the train station. Her train had arrived a good ten minutes late. The train we returned home on was also delayed by five minutes or so. This is a regular occurrence with that particular train service. On that occasion it provoked Phil into commenting something along the lines of "this service is c**p". 

Some time later, Phil received a text message from what is now known to us as "C***p Rail" offering special half price travel over a certain period. So we decided it was time to go and visit an old friend in Newcastle. Trying to book these special half price tickets on the website of "C**p Rail" proved more than problematical. In the end we booked tickets in our usual way, taking advantage of the reduction we get on the Senior Rail Card. 

So off we went yesterday into Manchester to catch the train to Newcastle. Checking the departures board to see which platform it left from. And there it was: 13:51 to Newcastle - cancelled! What??? Making enquiries at the information office, all we found out was that we should catch the 13:29 to Stalybridge (going back on our tracks) and change trains there. Just as well we arrived in plenty of time and looked at the departures board. 

Having arrived at Stalybridge, we discovered that we needed to catch the Hull train and get off at Huddersfield where we would eventually catch a train to Newcastle. Which we duly did. Somewhere along the way we found out that the train we were finally going to Newcastle on was in fact our original train. It had started from Liverpool and because of delays it had come into Manchester at Piccadilly Station instead of Victoria. This was, of course, "C**p Rail" at its best. 

Because of the changes, all seat reservations were cancelled. At almost every station along the way, someone would get on and try to claim an already occupied seat. Such fun! 

In Newcastle, we left the station and hopped straight onto a bus in a new service which took us almost to our friend's door. A talking bus, at that. It announced each stop well in advance. And we had a bit of tour round the sights of Newcastle en route. 

Thank goodness some services are not run by "C**p Rail".