Blog2006 ≫ I thought things looked funny from the train last night

Looking out of my window I could see lots of lorries queued up in the dark, I thought it was the entrance to the tunnel1 but wondered why I'd not noticed it before... Seems the M20 was closed last night, Operation Stack2 came into effect:

Motorists were stuck for up to 12 hours after a stretch of the M20 was turned into a lorry park because of a ferry blockade.

Many drivers switched off their engines and went to sleep as three junctions on the 56-mile motorway were closed between Ashford and Sandgate, Folkestone.

Kent Police acted after French workers formed a blockade in Calais preventing ferries from leaving Dover. A police spokesman said the move - codenamed Operation Stack - could be in place all day. He added that he had "no idea" how long the industrial action would continue.

In other travel news, we had a dumper of a journey in yesterday, twenty five minutes of delay caused by weather conditions and congestion and an earlier train. Every time we get these excuses it pisses me off, they're NOT real excuses, weather is forecastable, trains should be scheduled and fairly predictable, so what's the real reason? When there's a problem caused by an earlier train why not tell us what the original problem was that caused that earlier train to be delayed, that has had the knock on effect on our train? It just makes everyone assume there was not legitimate earlier problem, and the clowns in charge have a huge Wheel of Excuses that they spin and read off.

Shame it was only twenty-five minutes delay, over thirty and we can apply for a refund. We've both done this for one day this week, still waiting to hear... if there are going to be delays I'd rather they were on the way in than the way home, and I'd rather they were less than five minutes (though our morning trains are never ever this prompt) or thirty-one minutes exactly. Thanks.

Meeting a chum for a very brief lunch today, so missing out on today's freebie delights.

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Paul Clarke's blog - I live in Hythe in the far South. Married to Clare + father to two, I'm a full-stack web developr, + I do js / nodejs, some ruby, python, php etc. I like pubs, parkrun, eating, home automation and other diy jiggery-pokery, history, genealogy, TV, squirrels, pirates, lego, and TIME TRAVEL.