Wholl make it up for a train ride that went off the rails?
It was a pretty sight – but I hadn’t planned to watch the sun rise over Darlington when I boarded my train in London 11 hours before. I was one of the thousands of passengers caught up in the train cancellations along the east coast main line last week. Mercifully, I wasn’t aboard the 14.55 from Newcastle to Kings Cross, the train which caused the chaos by striking an overhead cable near Peterborough. In temperatures reaching 115F, sweltering passengers trapped on that train resorted to drinking tap water from the toilets and smashing windows to let in air while they waited to be rescued. But the knock-on effect caused delays to another 25 services, including my own, which was due to leave London Kings Cross at 19.00 and arrive at Newcastle upon Tyne three hours later. But after three hours of confused inertia, train operating company GNER finally advised me to catch a train instead from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly, then another to York and finally another to Newcastle. But
