Manchester to London - Avanti 13:15

One train before cancelled and another delayed, so everyone bundled onto the 13:15 I'm on currently. Aircon struggling. Toilet is the coolest place on the train!

Took the guard 45 minutes to declassify even though it was painfully obvious there were going to be plenty of people standing.

A rather feeble message telling people to move bags too I think about 30 minutes after we left. He generally sounded and looked like he wanted to just pack it up and go home - bad day I guess :/

Extra stop at Nuneaton perhaps a little pointless given how busy the service is? Uninformed opinion though

Rugby had about 50-80 people getting on meaning aisles now completely full. People said platform staff didn't mention how busy it was or anything

Noticed very little giving up of seats for the elderly. A very sad indictment of the state of society. Gave mine up to an elderly lady.

If the delay ends up only being 29 minutes instead of 30 I'll be quite annoyed lol.

No further announcements about declassification, no apologies etc.

speedy1 said:

If the delay ends up only being 29 minutes instead of 30 I'll be quite annoyed lol.

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Looks to have arrived into London Euston ~ 28 minutes down.

Mcr Warrior said:

Looks to have arrived into London Euston ~ 28 minutes down.

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Typical!

edit: I'm heading further though on a single ticket, and I think the delay will exceed 30 minutes through a combination of both Avanti and Elizabeth Line delays. I guess I still claim from Avanti for 30-59?

The WCML is having another bad day. Overhead wire issues south of Rugby I believe. The usual cancellations and late-running trains. I was using the West Midlands Rover but gave up due to the former and the trains being full and standing.

speedy1 said:

Typical!

edit: I'm heading further though on a single ticket, and I think the delay will exceed 30 minutes through a combination of both Avanti and Elizabeth Line delays. I guess I still claim from Avanti for 30-59?

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Yes, claim from Avanti as long as your delay ends up over 15 minutes, they will calculate how long your delay was regardless of what you tell them and they'll give you what they calculated (based on the minimum connection times). If it invoes cross London connections which have a far higher minimum connection time than necessary you'll probably end up in the 30-59 bracket.

speedy1 said:​

Noticed very little giving up of seats for the elderly. A very sad indictment of the state of society. Gave mine up to an elderly lady.

Friend aged 78 was travelling Milton Keynes Central to Euston on Tuesday, the morning the cows on the line between Lichfield Trent Valley and Rugeley Trent Valley causes delays. Because of the delays the train she boarded at MKC was standing room only and she wasn't looking forward to having to stand all the way to Euston. Just after Leighton Buzzard she said a gentleman dressed in a suit who had been working on his laptop got up and offered her his seat which she was very grateful for.

I wouldn't say she looks "elderly" but she does have grey hair.

It's a difficult one. On the one hand I hope that I don't look "elderly/old" so don't want people to offer me their seat because they think I'm old but conversely I too am getting on a bit and find standing for more than about half an hour difficult.

Nice to see there are still some courteous people (eg speed1) around who will offer a seat to someone who appears to need it.

We had a lovely conversation during the journey (tangentially related: "...and when we arrived, we were a socialist train" ... Search that on YouTube to find a lovely Tony Benn video). A more than fair tradeoff

She kept trying to give it back to me including contorting herself into the gap behind the seats where luggage can go (?!) but I was absolutely having none of it.

I was also on this train, from Manchester Piccadilly, as far as Rugby. Helpfully I was able to get a good seat at Manchester by getting on 25 minutes before departure.

The Nuneaton call was presumably to replace the call by the cancelled following train. As noted, there were more boarders than leavers at both Nuneaton and Rugby, so the already over-full train became excessively so.

Though the earlier OLE problems just south of Rugby had been fixed, it then lost time between Nuneaton and Rugby by having to run on the painfully slow Up Slow. This appeared to be due to a failed Tamper 6J62, causing Down trains to use the bi-di Up Fast in the Down direction and so forcing Up trains onto the Up Slow. At least we have this bi-di capability.

At about this time there was a fatality or similar incident near Long Buckby which destroyed the service via Northampton for several hours.

We need HS2 now, not at some undefined date in the future.

Just to close the loop, Avanti have paid out the 50% Delay Repay without any fuss. Result! Glad I got the through-ticket.