I find myself in the unusual situation of having lunch at home on a working Monday. This is because I have to travel down to Brighton this evening for some Sussex business tomorrow. Not wanting to carry all my stuff into work and thence to the station I decided to plan on coming home for a bite to eat before setting out on the journey.
Normally the journey from Cardiff to Brighton would be expected to take about four hours via London, but there’s been a lot of disruption to the trains recently owing to flooding that occurred after a period of heavy rain about 10 days ago. In fact the area, between Bristol Parkway and Swindon, that flooded this time seems to do so regularly, each time catching Network Rail Notwork Fail completely by surprise. Why has this localised flooding taken so long to fix? I have no idea. I’m no engineer, but I would have thought it should be possible to do something about a problem so well known. But that never seems to happen, and the system is thrown into chaos nearly every time it rains, with trains having to be re-routed or cancelled in shambolic fashion. We are however getting a bigger station at Reading, which apparently means that more trains can be run into and out of London. Until the line floods again.
Anyway, I’m taking no chances and setting out early. If I am to endure a scenic diversion via Bath at least I’ll have plenty to do: coursework to mark, stuff to read, and papers to revise. Wish me luck. I think I’ll need it.
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