The time was 06:20, the location was Aylesbury train station.
The beginning
of what was to be an extremely long day.
The time was 06:20, the location was Aylesbury train station. The beginning
of what was to be an extremely long day.
The train journey to Marylebone was, funnily enough, pretty uneventful. I hopped off the train, knowing that getting to Kings Cross meant that things should be OK, and got an underground ticket. Problem number one; The underground was closed.
No worries, hop into a cab and head for Kings Cross. On the way there, the cabby turned the radion on. The news mentioned something of a derailment on the line to York and some cancellations.
Problem number two; Every train to Edinburgh was cancelled and I needed to get to Durham.
As luck would have it, getting the taxi meant that I could hop on the 08:05
to Leeds, where I would try and work out what the hell to do. On the way there,
the guard mentioned that GNER would be running shuttles from Leeds to York to
reconnect with the line, and that Virgin and Arriva had agreed to honour GNER
tickets. So, to cut a long story short, by 13:30 I found myself at the
surprisingly small Durham station.
I phoned the vendor to let him know that I was there and, after a few repeats, I understood that he would pick me up from the station in a yellow pickup. This was the second conversation that we had had on the 'phone and I had been amazed on both occasions that, clearly, neither of us had a clue what the other was saying.
He turned up, though, took me to see Atomic and, after a good all round check of electrics and a test-drive, the cash was handed over. He then took me to a Post Office to tax her -as she was SORN'd - and then led me to the petrol station to fill up with diesel. He was going to lead me to the A-something or other to get to the A1. Really nice bloke.
Atomic did wonders. Minus a food stop and traffic jam north of Leeds, she got
back home in under six hours - at an average of 60-65MPH. Pretty noisy, but not
too uncomfy. 10/10 Atomic - but a pretty long day all round.
