2 April (Part 2) - The best laid plans etc.
I had two, possibly even three quick blogs in mind for today but they will
have to wait until tomorrow by which time they will be out of date. Beaten by the
News Shopper in some cases! But I am well prepared with excuses.
When I visited my friend in hospital I found her being lined up for discharge which
was most unexpected because she died twice on the way to hospital but miraculously
suffered no lasting heart damage thanks to the speedy treatment.
It seemed sensible to wait beyond my allotted time on the visitors’ rota to arrange her
journey home. In the event due to the unavailability of some specialist medic to
sign her off she is to be kept in until tomorrow.
I was at Denmark Hill station by 14:30 to wait for the 14:48 to Lewisham but it
was cancelled due to a derailment according to the announcement. If they had said it
was at Charlton I may have worked out that the best route home was the Overground to
Shadwell and then the DLR to Woolwich Arsenal. Instead I went non-stop
to Victoria and District Line to Cannon Street.
I could have run for the advertised 15:17 but I am getting too
old for that sort of thing. The 15:27 appeared on the board but disappeared
without an announcement. Ditto the 15:37 so I asked the only man in a yellow
jacket why the Abbey Wood trains kept disappearing off the board. He said there
were no trains to Abbey Wood because of a derailment at Charlton. So it was DLR
from Bank to Woolwich Arsenal where all the buses were full. The concept of
queuing In an orderly fashion cannot be applied to a bus stop which serves a
dozen buses which tend to all arrive at once.
In the end I walked to Plumstead and got on the shuttle that was running from there.
It took two hours and 45 minutes to get home and some of it might have been
avoided if only Southeastern bothered to tell passengers what was happening. No
one I spoke to on the Plumstead shuttle knew about the derailment, only that
there were no trains.
Guess who is the newest member of the Southeastern is useless club?
For the benefit of out-of-town readers, Abbey Wood to
Denmark Hill is a scheduled 30 minutes plus a ten minute wait at Lewisham. There
is a picture of the derailed train at on the
News Shopper's website