First Capital Connect - Friday 21st April

When I left the office on Friday and got to Kings Cross Thameslink it really reminded me how the station looked on the 21st of July (the failed second wave of terror attacks on London) - there was even emergency tape over the stairs, people/luggage everywhere, lots of rail staff and police, I thought "OMG! What's happening?", but it turned out (as I had come in early with Flyingpops and caught the bus) that pretty much all Thameslink services had been suspended for most of the day (damage to overhead lines), one of the rail staff guys advised me to go to Victoria via the tube, so I gritted my teeth and started moving at speed towards Kings Cross mainline and the underground...I had *just* got there and was fighting through the crowds towards the stairs when an annoucement (in super-echo-mode, as is normal in that cavernous building) kindly informed me that "Kings Cross Thameslink is now operational, all customers please note that your tickets will now not be valid on services from Kings Cross mainline"...argh(!)...so, turning around, I battled back through the crowds, getting a bit hot and bothered now, worked my way back along the road to the Thameslink station only to be greeted by the same scene, only slightly changed by the addition of a large sign proclaiming that all services were suspended until further notice...I had to query this with the staff, I really wasn't relishing retracing my steps *again*, but they confirmed, everything was down for the foreseeable future...one extra bit of news though, they *were* operating a partial service southbound from Blackfriars...so, thanks to those failed terror attacks, I knew just what to do... ;) By running like mad I just caught the closing doors on a number 63 bus, paid my one fifty and sat, sweating and panting until I saw the bridge (took about ten minutes I guess) hopped off and ran across the road, bounded up the stairs to the sound of an announcement that my train (yes, believe it or not, my normal train home!) was on platform 4 about to depart, this spurred me to even greater speed, and I flew (as the beeps were sounding) through the first available door...*phew*...

So *this* morning, we get to Earlswood, passing a queue of about 40 people standing at the (normally deserted) number 100 bus stop only to find about 10 car parking spaces outside the station (which is totally unheard of)...I commented "It's not Sunday again is it?" to Flyingpops and then spotted the workmen dotted all over the tracks..."Over-running engineering works" were confirmed by the ticket lady at the station entrance, so we hop back in the car and drive into Redhill, park the car in a back road and hurry across town to the station making it *just* in time for Flyingpops to catch the last (packed) carriage of her normal train...!

Copies of the letter pictured above were littered all over *my* normal train a few minutes later, apologising for Friday and saying they will consider applications for compensation - if you were delayed by over 30 minutes...So, two stressful, inconvenient and tiring dashes now bracket my weekend, neither of which are valid for any sort of compensation - simply because we weren't inconvenienced *enough* (and were prepared to pull out all the stops to *make* the journey happen)...if I had sat on my ass at Kings Cross Thameslink waiting for them to get their act together I *would* be eligable for compensation...but it's not a very appealing way to spend your Friday night...! I'm not entirely satisfied...