Oh bloody hell.
I suppose I should have read further down the list of engineering works, because it looks like there's similar amounts of work going on for the weekends of the 27th and the 3rd as well. :(
Things are slightly better on the 27th than they were on the 20th, because there are trains running on the Sunday between Edinburgh and Glasgow, but the Saturday is still Glasgow -> Carlisle -> York. Full, normality is not returned until the 10th of November.
I'm happy to stick with the 27th, although it means the Glasgow and Edinburgh teams won't be able to meet up on the train on the way down. This is possibly a good thing, depending on whether York's attitude to gangs of drunken maurauding Scotsmen has changed at all in the last 400 years.
Just looking at the prices for tickets - that Glasgow -> Carlisle -> York route I just mentioned is only available at £68, vs a slightly later 9:45 Glasgow -> Edinbugger -> Newcastle -> York route that gets in at quarter to three, and is £23 (GNER Std Advance).
Getting back seems to be about 70 quid from Steeton, or possibly getting the ticket from Steeton to Leeds on the day and wangling it from there.
Meh - I want to ask nicely if we could change it to the 10th of November when there's more trains and better deals, but would that be just asking for trouble?
The 10th would be grand, especially as it's a merre 4 days after pay day.
Not that I'm offering to buy anyone a drink...
:|
So remind me again - you're now working for the Department of Not Helping, right?
I had a look here:
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_bulletins/currentAndFuture.html
And there's nothing which would affect things too badly.
I blame the unions anyway. If Thatcher had her way, all the engineering work would be carried out in the middle of the night by cheap foreign labour, with the electricity switched on. And then we'd send the cheap foreign labour back to where they came from, having taken all their money.
Assuming that suits The Northerners.
Mouse!? Manthrob!? T'Others!? What say ye?
WTF ever.
I will just say that last night I arranged all my work for October and have kept the weekend of the 27th free.