Virgin Trains should have pointed out at the time of booking that their trains seem to be allergic to Glasgow Central. Well, that’s one way of putting it. On the 18th, following a points failure that led to a diversion, and a series of emergency repair works, we were already an hour late when we got to Preston. But on the approach to Carlisle, it was announced that the train would terminate there, instead of carrying on to Glasgow. A truck had just hit a bridge just south of Beattock summit, so no trains were going north up the West Coast Mainline. Fairly impressively though, 15 minutes later four coaches arrived at the station, and after a quick dash up the motorway, we crawled through the rush hour traffic to arrive a mere 2hr 15mins late.

Coming back down yesterday, and once again the gods were conspiring to ensure that there was no train waiting in Glasgow Central for my journey. A train arrived from the depot outside the station 20 minutes after the scheduled departure time - boarding took another 15 minutes so we were 35 minutes late leaving Glasgow. At Carlisle we had to wait for the Penzance train to leave the station, adding another 10 minutes, and the joys of trying to get into stations when it’s not your timetabled slot meant we were an hour late by Warrington. After a detour through the centre of Birmingham (including that corner in the north of the city that’s taken at walking pace because it’s so sharp - can’t wait for the tilting trains to have a go at it), we had racked up 1hr 20mins delay by the time we got to Euston.

The thing is, the delays don’t bother me that much - I expect them to happen. The timetable is only there for a ‘if everything goes well’ scenario, which doesn’t happen very often. Last year’s eight-and-a-half hour odessy (it’s normally timetabled for five-and-a-half hours) may be extreme, but my trick is to not plan on doing anything else for the rest of the day, and that way being late doesn’t really matter too much. Sitting on the coach to Glasgow, spitting and swearing (and constantly rubbing your legs) doesn’t get you there quicker, and will make the guy sitting next to you think that you’re a twat - he won’t read this, but I didn’t think calling him a twat during the trip would be a good idea. So expect delays, sit back, and chill out.

All three of which are much more pleasant if you happen to be in First Class. Not something I’ve ever done before, but back when I was booking my tickets, I was surprised to find that it was £50 cheaper, and indeed only £30 to go by First Class for the return journey. I guess it was because there weren’t many businessmen travelling the day after boxing day, but all the cheap standard class tickets were in demand. Few people had noticed this strange pricing occurance, so I had over six hours of luxury with a table to myself, listening to announcements about standing in the carriages in Standard Class, eating smoked trout sandwiches and sipping orange juice, and generally feeling rather pleasant. I had initially turned down the refreshments (brie and grape or smoked trout were the two choices of sandwich - I wanted a BLT), but then I remembered that they were "complimentary", and it’s illegal for students to turn down offers of free food. The big problem with First Class is that it doesn’t get you there any quicker or any more on time. I wasn’t complaining though.