Train strike: ‘I cycled 33 miles to get to concert’

The continued disruption to rail services has seen many people across the country find their travel plans disrupted.

While many have been forced to cancel plans, some have decided to make their trip anyway.

Mike Simpson was looking forward to seeing blues and rock group George Thorogood and the Destroyers at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall on Wednesday night.

Finding out his train from his hometown Leicester to Nottingham was cancelled, the 54-year-old refused to be defeated.

He decided to make the 33-mile trip by bike.

“I got the exercise and fun of a great e-bike ride and I got to see the concert, so it was a win-win,” says Mike.

By train, the journey would have taken him about half an hour. Instead, the journey, door to door, took five hours each way.

The bike ride took three hours, stopping for a lunch break at his mother’s house along the way.

“It was a fantastic gig, absolutely rocking, so I was lucky enough to be able to turn a slight inconvenience into a benefit,” he says.

“I don’t feel strongly about strikes, but more cars on the road aren’t great for the environment, so I was glad I could make the trip by bike.”

Huub train enthusiasts van de Pol and his wife Mariëlle from Haarlem in the Netherlands had planned a holiday around Huub’s birthday on August 20.

They were looking forward to a lovely five-hour train journey from London to Cornwall which they had booked in June.

But with a strike planned for the day, they are now taking an eight-hour National Express bus journey to reach their destination in Falmouth.

“I thought I had to make the best of it,” says Huub.

“It’s a huge disappointment but I support the strike and I think they deserve better pay and working conditions. But I think the privatization of the UK train companies was a bad idea and this is the result.”

Twenty-six-year-old Jordan had tickets booked to see Coldplay at Wembley Stadium on August 13. When he heard this week that a strike had been called for that day, he decided to take action.

He and his friend Nathan sold their Saturday tickets, bought new tickets for Friday night and rebooked their hotel. Although Jordan was able to sell his advance ticket for £77, the new one cost £162.

What would have been a one hour train journey from Ipswich has now become a three hour journey each way, £60 in petrol and having to take a day off work.

“It’s been a bit of a nightmare from start to finish,” says Jordan. “There is still drama to get the money back from Trainline and not much time and notice to provide employment.

“It’s a real bummer. I can understand why they’ve done it, but how long is this going to be before we can get back to normal?

“People’s plans are in all kinds of trouble, so we need to act.”

Some have been doubly affected by the ongoing industrial action.

Husband and wife Simon Robinson and Alison Whalley are in the process of moving from London to Derbyshire and had planned to spend a few days settling into their new home in Buxton.

The train journey from Euston to Buxton last month should have taken around three and a half hours but ended up taking eight hours, two taxi journeys and a total of seven train tickets.

The pair were held up by problems at Euston on the West Coast Line, so they decided to continue their journey from St Pancras using the East Midlands Line.

Again there were delays and cancellations so the next course of action was to take a taxi to Marylebone and from there the couple took a train from Chiltern to Birmingham Moor Street.

They then walked to Birmingham New Street, took the Cross Country Line to Derby and then the East Midlands train to Matlock. Another taxi ride completed his journey to his new home.

“It’s really irritating and becomes much more of a puzzle,” says Simon. “It’s more expensive but, frankly, it’s the wasted time that bothers me. It’s like traveling back to the 19th century.”

Alison was then also affected by the strikes on Wednesday this week.

“I have a lot of sympathy for unions and I think they should charge the right rate for the job,” says Simon.

“I think the government needs to allow rail companies to negotiate and I think rail companies need to think about how to make their services resilient.”