After Tom had problems last Saturday night I checked on Friday evening to make sure the last train, the 11.18pm, was still running and hadn't been cancelled. All was fine. John asked me yesterday afternoon what time it got into our local station so he could pick us up so I checked. It wasn't showing. The last train that came up was the 9.18pm. Looking at further info, it was cancelled because they didn't have a driver and there wasn't a replacement bus service either. I looked into buses and we could get a late one as far as Walsall but there was nothing late at night from Walsall to here (and the Walsall bus comes past our estate so would've been ideal). John offered to pick us up so that's what we ended up doing...but then he had to get off the M6, go down the M5, get off at West Brom and come into town down the Soho Rd through Handsworth because the M6 was closed! Quite a detour!
Saying all that though the positive thing was that he picked us up at 10.50pm and we were home before the last train would've even left New St had we been able to get it
Oh, and the train into town was free. The stations along here are unmanned, the ticket machine wasn't working, the conductor never showed his face on the train (and it was packed) so we couldn't buy tickets on there and there was no one checking tickets on the barriers when we got to New St.
There were so many people getting on the train though who were obviously dressed up for a night out and you wonder how many were relying on getting the late trains home and were let down, not knowing that the last two were cancelled.
xx
