Here are some stories from my experiences with transport mishaps. It goes to prove that not everything works like it should.<\/p>\n
Getting from Macclesfield to Stockport, they're only 10 miles apart, should be a straightforward affair. On Virgin trains, the journey is 10\u201315 minutes long and takes 20 minutes on the stopping local Northern train service. In addition, there are hourly buses operating daytime on weekdays, with just three services each way on Sundays. Buses take 60 minutes to reach their destination, so most use the more frequent trains.<\/p>\n
However, when I headed into Stockport for a new laser printer one night last week, the journey by train took 45 minutes. The reason is that I had the misfortune of catching a failing train; it was already an hour late. Around a mile north of Macclesfield station, the Virgin Pendolino from London Euston came to a halt just as the train manager was telling us that Stockport was only 10 minutes away. Thankfully, we were not in a tunnel at the time. 30 minutes of the train driver's tinkering followed, including the \"resetting\" of the train. That means turning the thing completely off and back on. Lights went out and doors stopped operating: I was thinking of the consequences if this went wrong. I suspect that windows would have to be broken with emergency hammers for us all to make an exit. Happily, this did not prove necessary, as the \"resetting\" resolved the problem and we were on our way. And I did get my printer, but train times were completely thrown out for the rest of the evening. The sight of pairs of Manchester-London and London-Manchester trains leaving Stockport was odd, to say the least.<\/p>\n
In the past week, the M6 has been affected by a number of crashes. When cycling home on Monday, I encountered a tailback extended from Congleton, but I turned off on my way back to Macclesfield and left the queue behind. Today, though, has been much worse. Today's disruption was caused by a series of crashes on the M6 and when the M6 is subject to delays and congestion, the result is that traffic that normally plies the M6 ends up on Cheshire's trunk roads. Because it is an artery to Manchester and crosses the M6, the A34 usually is badly affected and traffic chokes the villages and towns like Alderley Edge and Wilmslow. Another town affected is Knutsford, not on the A34, but not far from the M6. And when the roads are choked, buses and coaches are brought to near-standstill too. The result, like tonight, is that I got home 20\u201330 minutes later than usual, and I was lucky; others had a 60-minute delay, and I was left waiting for 90 minutes one evening when a lorry turned over on the A34. Also, being the time of year that it is, we can expect road congestion like this on the approach to Christmas. Curiously, things tend to settle down after then.<\/p>\n
Of course, when it comes to traffic conditions, it often pays to know things in advance and that is where these traffic sites come in very handy. The first of these was very useful today. They may even stop me having to stand out in the cold for too long.<\/p>\n