Tuesday

Didn't travel on Monday - not much point so I worked from home.

I did travel on Tuesday.  

Morning: No direct services between Braintree and Liverpool St. So I got the 0812 shuttle (late) to Witham.

First train out of Witham (late) didn't stop at Stratford so I was obliged to wait for the next one (late) which did. For once I can't actually complain, the train had seats available, and went pretty much to schedule. It was just the timing, after 0850, meant I was late to work.

Evening: No direct service from Stratford to Braintree, then again there aren't on a normal day. Caught the 1820 Clacton service (late), because the 1806 Ipswich train was chock full with no space, standing or sitting.

The Clacton train had seats available, but there was what the driver described as a "minor" fault on the rolling stock. This meant a 10 minute delay at Stratford while he tried to resolve it. Then after setting off, the train was forced to stop again at Seven Kings for another 20 minutes while an engineer tried unsuccessfully to fix it.

All of this meant the connecting service and the one following it at Witham came and went well before we arrived. As it happened the Braintree shuttle arrived at the same time so I was able to board immediately. However, yet again, we were forced to wait more than 10 minutes for a connecting service to arrive (late).

Oddly, the one time the connecting service I was on last week was late, the connection at Witham was allowed to go and I had a cold 40-odd minutes to wait for the next train.