Attempting to get to Bolton
My God, sometimes I really feel like the rail service in this country is in no way superior to that of a developing nation. I caught a train before 8am this morning with the expectation of being in Manchester before half nine. For the first hour or so of the journey, things went swimmingly well and I even managed to bag myself a seat. Around nine we pulled into Stoke on Trent and a few passengers disembarked from the train. We continued to sit there for a few minutes, then there was a sudden announcement that all trains northwards were cancelled until further notice and could we all please get off.
There was a stunned sort of silence in the carriage, and then we all obediently began to get off. Stoke station was soon a heaving mass of people, all of whom had been trying to travel northwards and none of whom knew what was going on. The station staff didn’t know what was going on either. Well, apparently there had been a total power failure in Manchester Piccadilly, but it had literally only just happened and no one knew whether it might take two minutes or two days to get it running again. In the meantime, we were advised to sit on the platform and not make a nuisance of ourselves.
Sit we did, for the best part of an hour, whereupon we were unexpectedly allowed to board our train again and told it would soon depart. This would have been cool, apart from the fact that the number of passengers trying to travel northwards had greatly multiplied in the intervening period, and the train was no longer big enough for them. By virtue of some menacing wielding of my suitcase, I managed to squeeze my way onto the train and find a quiet corner in which to stand. As more and more people squeezed onto the train, however, I got pushed further and further back into the wall and by the time the train pulled off I could hardly see or breathe, certainly not move, so surrounded I was by people. I’m not normally panicked by confined spaces, but this was exceptionally unpleasant 
Mercifully it lasted less than an hour and we did finally arrive in Manchester. Manchester Piccadilly looks like it is a very nice station, far better than Birmingham New Street, and if the entire place hadn’t been in a state of frenzied turmoil I might have been better able to appreciate it. As it was, trains were being announced, then cancelled, then reannounced willynilly and no one had a clue what was going on. I eventually found my way to platform 14 where Bolton bound trains were supposed to leave from, only to find about 500 people who had been hoping to board a cancelled service to Liverpool Lime Street. I stood there for a farcical half an hour while that particular service was cancelled and uncancelled three times, after which time it finally arrived and was followed by what I hope is the train I wanted to catch. To be honest, I haven’t got a clue in hell where I am, where I’m going, or whether I’m actually going to get there, but I am at least sitting down which seems like a bonus. Wish me luck!