Angel on the Tracks

The train came to a shuddering unexpected halt.

I’ve been a regular on the 16:30 from Euston for over four years. Not every day, no, just when I’m needed down south, usually just for a couple of days every other week or so. Sometimes I get the half five or the half six, even the half seven if I can be persuaded to stay for another pint or so, but the half seven is a risk; there is no half eight to fall back on, and its been known to get cancelled.

So this was a fairly typical journey, different only in that I had my son with me, and it was a Monday.

The school had an inset day. We used to call them teacher training days, but it meant that the school was closed to pupils, and rather than allow the children to enjoy a bit of spare time to themselves, they instead devised a way to ruin that.

Take Your Child to Work Day, they called it. There was a form to fill in, some proviso for insurances, safeguarding, health and safety etc, and the children were given a workbook to complete along the way. An excellent learning experiment, and the perfect opportunity to take the youngest to my Favourite curry house. We do both enjoy a good curry.

So the day arrived and it gave me the opportunity to teach the lesson of the overnight business trip. Pack spare pants, washbag, laptop, a charger and power bank for every possible eventuality. Then was the lesson of the Greggs, for in the vicinity of any good train station, there is a Greggs, and for the three hours it takes to get to London, you need a Greggs.

The trip proceded without hicup, and we did the lesson of finding a seat on the train. We did the lesson of sitting still and chatting quietly. We did the lesson of checking in at the hotel and hanging up our clothes for the next day. We did the lesson of the Curry House and the enjoying of the food.

We did the lesson of watching traffic and listening to sirens all night from our hotel room next to the Emergency Department. Need to remember that when I’m booking the next one. Note to self: avoid hotels next to hospitals.

We did the lesson of the getting up in the morning and making instant coffee with the tiny kettle. The lesson of checking the room for forgotten chargers and toothbrushes for the forty seventh time. And the lesson of facing and then filtering through the hoards of commuters swarming from the secret hatches of The London Underground.

We did the lesson of finding a desk at the office. Except for a stretch of desk permanence in the second half the Twenty Tens, I’ve been hot desking since 2000. Its the norm. After that we did the lesson of the casual chatter in the staff kitchen while making a brew. The lesson of the checking the schedule for the day ahead, checking for urgent messages, and then compiling the priorities for the day.

Then it got boring for the little one as I, as he put it, was just writing emails, and he asked if he could watch YouTube with his headphones instead. I said yes.

I wasn’t just writing emails, I was writing Teams messages too, updating Jira, SharePoint. I was preparing code for deployment. None of which is particularly interesting to a thirteen year old, and I wasn’t going to force him to watch every mouse click and key stroke just for the sake of it.

The day passed quickly, as the busy ones do. We had a pub lunch and numerous stops through the day to discuss progress and fill out his booklet for school. Before we knew it, it was home time, and time to rush for the scrum that is the 16:30 from Euston. Today was different.

Euston station is rarely quiet, and never at the times that I have to use it, but today it seemed a little subdued. We arrived in good time, and using my special app that tells me which platform our train will depart from, we stood at the gate and waited patiently to be allowed on to the platform and board our train. We were joined by a handful of others and when the gate opened our tickets were checked, and we made a civilised run for a seat in Carriage G. There is usually a stampede at this time as seats are limited and if you’re not fast enough you can find yourself standing all the way to Warrington. That didn’t happen on this occassion, and I counted no more than three other passengers in our carriage. Clearly, Mondays are the day to travel north.

We left Euston on time and were soon up to speed, whizzing through the suburbs of North West London, and out in the countryside at full pelt.

After about half an hour, we came to a screeching juddering halt, the sort of stop that sends your belongings sliding off of the table. We were out in the middle of nowhere, stopped at a red signal. Red signals happen quite a lot, but they’re not usually that abrupt. Outside to the right, trains were still running normally on the other three lines. I don’t know what it is about sitting on the express train watching the slower commuter services pass us, but I find that particularly annoying.

After ten minutes, the train manager announced that we were stopped at a red signal, which we’d already guessed, and would proceed as soon as we were cleared to do so. Another six minutes passed, and the train manager chimed in with more information. We were being held just outside of Milton Keynes station whilst a Welfare Check was completed on one the platforms.

A welfare check, not to be confused with a Welfare Cheque, is when the authorities or emergency services intervene on behalf of an individual that they believe to be in danger. In this case, a person standing at the platform edge where we were about to pass through at one hundred and twenty five miles per hour.

We were never told the outcome of this welfare check other than they were no longer in danger, and that we were ok to resume our journey.

As our train picked up speed and very soon was whizzing through Milton Keynes Central, I wasn’t concerned about the delay. I was just grateful that whatever might have been about to happen, didn’t because at the very last second, the signal flipped to Red.