27 August (Part 1) - Just a one off, probably
Following
my difficult journey back from Dartford yesterday I returned to Abbey Wood
station to see if I had misread their timetable; I had but not in any
significant way. My eye had not taken in the 16 minutes past Thameslink train on
the line above the other three, but that did not explain where the SouthEastern trains had gone.
I asked.
“There were no trains to Dartford because of engineering work.” So how did the
Thameslink train manage to get there?
“Because the engineering work was at Charing Cross”. So how did I get back to
Bexley on a Charing Cross train?
No one knew. I had looked at the map of scheduled weekend engineering on
Saturday and came to the conclusion that all the problems were well south of Abbey
Wood. The weekend engineering map is no longer on display and replaced by another so any
evidence one way or another has gone.
However I am assured that yesterday’s lack of trains from Dartford was a one
off. The National Rail website was reporting that Thameslink had insufficient
drivers available to meet their obligations and SouthEastern trains were not
running for reasons unknown.
I must make it clear that all the staff at Abbey Wood station are incredibly
helpful. Probably if I had asked one of them on Saturday I would have been more
informed than I was just by reading the timetable and engineering notice.