A visit to my friend and spiritual
director in Wakefield was long, long overdue and I finally got round
to making an appointment to go and see him and booked the tickets for
the journey: the usual route to the north via a change to the East
Coast main line at Peterborough and Plusbus ticket to get to his
house on the edge of the city when I got there. I booked First Class
on a through train to Wakefield on the way there to experience the
East Coast breakfast, and Standard Class for the return because there
were not such good ticket prices to be had later in the day and in
any case it would not be at a meal time!
The day came to leave and as usual I checked the train running online before leaving for the station and
was disappointed to discover that my connection to Wakefield was
cancelled because of a fault on the train. Aaarrgh! Now what? I had
an advance ticket only valid on that train, but, of course, in these
circumstances that restriction is waived provided one travels on a
reasonable alternative. Anyway, I set off on the train from Stamford
and enquired at Peterborough about what to do. It was very
straightforward, actually: I was to board a York-bound stopping train
which was due soon after the cancelled Wakefield and Leeds train, and
then change later into the following Leeds train which will not have
stopped at Peterborough: thus I would end up less than half an hour
late, well within my schedule. It was where the later change would
take place that was an interesting matter: the staff at Peterborough
said Grantham, that was the official line because there was no change
of platform at Grantham. Looking at the timetable I would prefer to
stay on until Doncaster for the following reasons:- I wanted my breakfast soon (!) and would rather have it between Peterborough and Doncaster than between Grantham (after a wait) and Wakefield
- The wait at Doncaster (for the same train) would be shorter as it would have caught up more with the stopping train I was boarding
- The wait at Doncaster is under a platform canopy, but not at Grantham
- In the event of further disruption, there are also local trains from Doncaster to Wakefield that I'd have been able to use
When I boarded the stopping train at
Peterborough the announcement was made that we could change at either
Grantham or Doncaster, and as breakfast was being served I stayed
where I was, coffee on my table as I settled down. The breakfast menu
is quite reasonable: you would not mistake it for a hotel buffet
breakfast but it includes a choice of cereal (even porridge), fruit
juice, various cooked items (I had bacon, egg, hash browns and
mushroom), coffee, croissant and yogurt.
I had been concerned about whether
there would be a seat for me on this train and whether there would be
enough food and drink, with it taking the passengers of an entire
second train, but that turned out to be no problem at all, in First
Class, at least and there were many empty seats even so – no wonder
there were so many cheap advance places available in this direction
at this time of day.
So, that was the “excitement”
almost over for the morning. An easy (cross-platform) change at
Doncaster and after some work on my computer I was soon in Wakefield,
there being no further disruption of any consequence. I said it had
been a long time since I had last been, and the bus stop I'd normally
used to visit my friend had moved, which was a minor panic for a
second, but I knew the city centre well enough to find the new stop
and, with my Plusbus ticket was on my way in no time, following the
route on the city map on my iPhone so that I could be sure to get off
at the right place.
Wakefield Westgate rail station, like
so many others at present, was being rebuilt to serve better the
number of people using it – the existing station having been
provided in the 1970s when passenger numbers were very much less. The Bishop of Wakefield was due to attend the opening of the
new building just a couple of days after my visit.
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