Home, at last.

Back home, after an interesting journey (in the Chinese sense of the word).

I was on the 12:02 from Darlington to Kings Cross. As usual Passenger Assistance at Darlington got me on the train without problem, though we did have to move three people from the wheelchair space and my first reaction was 'Gosh, this is crowded'. There was also an elderly lady being assisted aboard and as there were no seats obviously available I dropped the aisle side seat that gets folded up when the wheelchair space is in use so that she could use it - that one is just usable with the wheelchair in place, the window side one isn't (that's where my feet are). As we got chatting, she explained that the previous train, which she had a reservation on, had been cancelled. That explained the people standing in the aisles.

Things got worse at York, lots of people wanting to get on, and in the middle of them, a wheelchair user. Cue five minutes of the guy from Passenger Assistance shouting "Will you please move out of the way" at the people in the vestibule. Fortunately the new wheelchair user was pretty good at manouevring their chair as getting them into the other wheelchair space, once they got to it, required moving seven suitcases, three adults, and two toddlers. And once they were in all of that luggage then got piled back around them. They literally could not move their chair, there were multiple bags leaning against it's side and a huge one in contact with the footplate at the front. I'm less than convinced that this was safe. Certainly neither of us could move without other passengers moving themselves and their luggage and getting to the toilet would have been an exercise in futility. It turned out that they should have been on the train two before ours, both the intervening ones having been cancelled. So we now had nearly three trainloads aboard. Another passenger asked if it was possible to use the other seat in the wheelchair space as they couldn't stand for long, and when I explained there physically wasn't space for an adult to use it they burst into tears. Fortunately someone volunteered to stand and let them have their seat.

So the other wheelie and I swapped anecdotes about travel by wheelchair - I can't beat their story of going over backwards in a wheelchair accessible taxi (but only because I stuck my toe under the seat in front to stop it happening the one time I've used one). Confusingly they sounded almost exactly like kaberett  - same pitch, similar accent - which was doing a cognitive dissonance number on my brain given voice and chair but visibly not Kab. I got a text from my sister after a while, having reported the crowding, saying "At least you have a seat", which got a laugh from everyone around, doubly so when the other wheelie reported an identical one from their mother. They were getting off at Peterborough, not going to the end of the line like me, so I suggested that if we saw the guard they grab him and demand help when we got there. We never saw him close enough to speak to, though apparently he did pop momentarily into view when the disabled passenger alarm started sounding - it wasn't either of us, we suspected the kid in the loo at the time had pressed the wrong button. Disturbingly he didn't check the toilet, or us, just reset the alarm, then disappeared again.

And inevitably we got to Peterborough, and not only wasn't the guard about, but neither was there any sign of passenger assistance with a ramp. Fortunately we were able to repeat the seven pieces of luggage, three adults, two toddlers and one wheelie sliding block puzzle to get them out, and they were able to stand unaided for long enough to get off the train and rely on other passengers to hand their chair down, but that's really not good enough. SOP needs to be that the guard ensures there's both access room and assistance in cases like this. Actually that needs to be standard in all cases, but doubly so when trains are massively overcrowded.

We were just over half an hour late at Kings Cross, which should mean I can reclaim half my fare, but it could have been worse, the woman doing passenger assistance at St Pancras told me they'd had to suspend all services for four hours yesterday due to a trespasser on the line, who they only managed to snare when they finally brought a helicopter in.

And just to cap everything, I made a complete pig's ear of coming down the ramp at Rochester, having to be saved by the guard and the passenger assistance guy when I braked harder on one side than the other and nearly went off the side of the ramp - I seem to have slightly sprained my wrist at some point and I'm not quite sure if it was the cause of the skid, or a consequence.

Still, I'm home, at last.