Re: The Well XVX - The well has sprung a leek.
A train leaves London towards Glasgow travelling at 60kph. Another train leaves Glasgow headed for London 30 minutes later traveling at 80kph. How long until they meet, and where?
Irrelevant. Neither will make it to London.
Here's why:
Train 1 is a Virgin Voyager. Somewhere between Rugby and Burton-Upon-Trent, the franchise for this particular route is bought by Arriva trains. They pull the train in question out of service for re-branding. The travelers on-board (that were all standing in the aisles and the toilet cubicles due to overcrowding) are stranded in a brewery town in middle England with no refunds and certainly no connecting bus services. Probably all mugged by chavs for their iPods, mobile phones and portable DVD payers. None of which have any charge on the battery, because the plug sockets on the Virgin train were all vandalised.
Now, Train 2 was a bit more successful. It was run by the Cross Country train service. This is a relatively new franchise, eager to impress the customers with promises of reduced fares, on-schedule trains that are clean, fast and comfortable. It was only an hour and a half late leaving Glasgow. A new record. It made it past both Rugby and Burton-Upon-Trent. However, the next obstacle in its way is the world's worst rail bottleneck: Birmingham New Street station. This hulk of 1950s brutalist architecture has been the bane of many a train operator, user and driver's life. The station was designed to serve 650 trains and 60,000 passengers per day however is currently serving 1,350 trains and 120,000 passengers. Already the train is running 6 hours late, and the queue at Birmingham causes the train to run out of fuel. Game over.
"All change please, all change, the British Rail Network has failed you again."
