We went away over for a family break the Easter holidays and took the train – as we normally do when heading out of town. I have previously written about the challenges of train ticket booking in the UK – this time it was a different challenge, or was it an opportunity?
We were heading across the UK rather than down or up. On the train, based on how the rail network is put together, in England mainly centred around London and Birmingham, it tends to be easier to go down or up i.e. south or north.
So going across, i.e. east to west, we needed to make a few connections. Which is fine is you are on time and you make them, or the trains are so frequent it does not matter is you miss them. In our case we missed one and the trains were not very frequent at all.
So it took a bit longer to get where we were going. We were a bit annoyed I can’t deny – it’s hard not to be. Particularly as we missed our connection by a few seconds . But we were not in such a rush and really there is very little you can do about it if your train is running late.
If you have some time to wait for another train you can get a drink (possibly something alcholic – well you’re not driving!), go find a bench in the sunshine or find something tasty to eat.
On this occasion it wasn’t alcohol – it has been in the past, in the UK bigger train stations do tend to have a nearby pub – but we did find a bench in the sun and located some very tasty pastries to munch (albeit a bit of shock in terms of their price!).
All told our missed connection was not a disaster – it can be an opportunity for something fun and unexpected – at the end of the day it is not your fault. Ideally of course the trains would run on time. And just think you could be sat in a traffic jam – there’s more freedom with car-free-dom!
Car-free family 
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