To Lincoln via Storm Doris
What a day!
This morning I set out from Cardiff to travel here to Lincoln for my public lecture. I took the 9.45 train via Birmingham which, after a change of trains in Nottingham, should have got me into Lincoln at 14.23, with plenty of time to have a look around and chat to people before the scheduled start of my talk at 18.00 hours.
That was the plan, but it omitted an important factor: Storm Doris. Fallen trees, broken down trains and general disorganisation meant that it took nine hours to get to Lincoln, even including getting a taxi from Nottingham because I missed my connection.
The strangest thing was that I never actually saw any particularly bad weather. In fact there was quite a lot of sunshine en route. All the chaos was caused elsewhere, apparently.
Anyway I finally turned up almost an hour late for my talk, but thankfully the audience had waited patiently so we went ahead with the lecture. I can’t say I was entirely unflustered after the journey but I hope at least some people found something of interest. There certainly were some very nice and interesting questions at the end.
So now after a pleasant dinner with my host Andrei, I am safely installed in a charming guest house right beside Lincoln Cathedral. I certainly think I’ll sleep well tonight!
Let’s hope my journey back to Cardiff is a bit less eventful.
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In the Dark 
February 24, 2017 at 8:54 am
There was a big tree down on on of the minor roads round here in N Shropshire.
February 24, 2017 at 8:24 pm
Hi Peter, it took me 12 hours to get back from Glasgow – including having to hire a car to drive from Preston to MK, because there were no trains going south.
Storm Doris shows how fragile our national infrastructure is. But during the course of my voyage, I met and chatted to many staff from Virgin trains – all of whom were friendly and helpful – and endlessly patient.
February 24, 2017 at 8:28 pm
Yes. Although it was chaos in Birmingham New Street the staff tried very hard in very difficult circumstances. Also there was a lot of good-natured banter among the passengers, people lending phones, etc. People do tend to come together in adversity. I’m glad that’s still the case.
February 28, 2017 at 9:44 pm
[…] – annual public lectures in Cosmology/Astrophysics. However, his efforts were in vain: in a truly heroic 9 hours trip, combining multiple trains and a taxi, our inaugural speaker Professor Peter Coles arrived from Cardiff to the waiting audience in […]
February 23, 2022 at 10:27 am
Reblogged this on In the Dark and commented:
We’ve had three major storms over the past week (Dudley, Eunice and Franklin). Today I was reminded that prevcisely five years ago today I was trying to make it from Cardiff to Lincoln to give a lecture. It took me nearly all day and I was an hour late, but, you know, the show must go on.
There’s obviously a thing about February and storms!