YORK SHAMBLES

Virgin East Coast was an utter shambles on Sunday 20 May. The 15.30 to Peterborough arrived about 25 minutes late, was held for a further period south of Doncaster to "let an express pass" and limped into Peterborough in time to connect with the next hourly "Liverpool" to Norwich East Midlands train which ran to time and in time to connect with an express to Sheringham which does not stop at West Runton. There can be no real reason for this train not stopping at West Runton (and if there was an integrrated railway system it would have). Fortunately there was a taxi at Sheringham which enabled us to conclude our journey.

A further feature of this journey was that car D on which we had reserved seats was missing (presumably destinned for Scotland or Cornwall) and no attempt was made to rectify this until the train arrived: it was an HST which is very difficult to board and alight from and requires assistance frrom other passengers. There were Britsih Transport Police on duty at Petrerborough who made no attempt to assist and knew nothing about train times, etc

And don't attempt to contact this train operator by telephone as they obviously possess a single instrument somewhere off the coast of Nortumberland.

Do we exp[ect too much from the LNER?