The run of boyhood bad luck that made me a Sunderland supporter has spread to the Grand Central train company.
Just when I was thinking of writing something about how much I appreciated the direct service between that that far-off northern destination and London, I ended up being stuck with 100s of other hapless travellers for more than three hours in the gloom of a Hertfordshire Sunday evening.
A train in front had broken down, or "failed" to use the word preferred by the guard - if that is what they're called - on our service bound for Kings Cross.
At first, it seemed a minor inconvenience. Our train would "go round" the other one. After a while, the guard was back on the PA system to say that no it wouldn't. The "failed" train would have to be moved.
The guard promised further information as she received it. Not much can have been reaching the poor girl.
Another age passed and she announced that the train ahead of us had jammed brakes. A loco was being sent from Stevenage to haul it away to wherever "failed", brake-locked trains go.
"I'm just 18 and know nothing about trains," said the girl behind me. "But shouldn't that have been the logical option in the first place?"
This morning, admittedly using a painfully slow internet connection, I have found no reference to this failed train. One or two news reports talk about disruption being caused by an accident during engineering works. My guess, in any event, is that whatever caused the delay, it was probably not a Grand Central train (passengers needing taxis on arrival in London just before 1am were advised to report to Platform 8 at Kings Cross, where an East Coast company rep would be waiting for them).
The last time I was delayed on this Sunderland service was when overnight vandalims in the depot was blamed for a problem that forced our northbound train to crawl along for the first part of the journey. And on the way back, our train had to stop at Hartlepool, go back north and take the old GNER line south from Newcastle. For the sake of variety, vandalism to the track was cited on that occasion.
So Grand Central is suffering from what me might call Arsenal-sized chunks of victimhood.
But before it gets too carried away with its own innocence in all of this, may we consider its own response to the events of last night.
* The train was jam-packed from York, where heaven knows how many people affected by other rail problems had to join us even though they had no seats.
* Throughout that long delay, people without seats had simply to stand, sit or crouch in whatever tiny piece of space they had claimed for themselves.
* No member of Grand Central staff was seen in our carriage at any time after the delay had begun. No check was therefore made as to whether passengers packed like cattle into confined space were in need of water - or anything else for that matter
* The buffet, such as it was was, had run out of beer and sandwiches almost as soon as it had opened, some way before that York stop. It had no hot food of any kind because the oven wasn't working.
* Although the guard did her best to make occasional contact, usually without useful information, via the PA system, she said nothing about what refreshments might still be available to those in need (and also able to climb over the various bodies occupying each square inch of space between them and the buffet).
* The much-vaunted Grand Central on-board Wifi failed to work, as it had done on the northbound journey, and no explanation was offered for this.
As I have said in an account at Salut! Sunderland of this miserable Sunday evening, any lessons learnt from Eurostar's calamitous handling of stranded passengers when its trains broke down in the Channel Tunnel do not seem to have been passed to Grand Central.
There was an unavoidable sense of abandonment on that train. Grand Central may have been unlucky; it was not quite as unlucky as its passengers.
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