dst. (km)
Today	0
Trip	3442.6

John cooked us a big fry-up breakfast before we headed off to Warwick to catch up with Amy. We got there around noon, but she still hadn’t got home from her party in Oxford the night before. Such is the life of a first-year university student. She was stuck at the station waiting for a friend and eventually turned up around 2:30, then the seven of us went out for a late lunch at a pub in a nearby village, three pretty 19 year-old girls, Toby, John, Lynn and myself.

Afterwards, Bev and Heidi gave Toby and myself a lift into Oxford to catch the train, Heidi back to Southampton, Toby and I to Reading(51.4333333,-1.0000000).

I tried to call Jo from the station but she’d gone out, I was thinking of heading in to London to visit if she’d been in. Turns out a good thing I hadn’t suggested it because just after we got on the train there was an enormous bang, all the lights went out, and everyone ended up lying on the floor. Another train had run into the back of ours as we sat at the station platform!

We stood on the train for about 45 minutes, occasionally hearing messages stating “There has been a delay, thank you for your cooperation.” Nobody knew anything, no one had any idea of what was going on. Some ambulance officers came and treated a few concussions and other injuries, but no one asked if people were OK or anyone was hurt, I guess you were meant to grab them if you needed them.

All the while, more and more people were turning up for other trains and asking whether ours was for Reading, or London, or Bristol…

Eventually there was an announcement that a three carriage train would leave for Reading(51.4333333,-1.0000000) from Platform 2, on the other side of the tracks, so everyone trooped over the bridge and crowded as close to the platform edge as possible. Since only a quarter of us would fit, everyone wanted to be the ones to get onto the train. I was convinced that someone would end up falling onto the tracks.

An amazing number of people crammed on board and we spent the half hour trip to Reading(51.4333333,-1.0000000) standing up like sardines. In order to leave the station we had to back up and cross over onto another track, giving us all a good view of the two crashed trains, still stuck together.

Toby and I finally got to Reading(51.4333333,-1.0000000) at about 9 pm and went straight to the pub for a much-needed pint, and talked about a whole range of things. It was while sitting there that I realised how sore my left shoulder was from where it had bashed into the train, and that three fingers of my left hand were half numb with pins and needles for about an hour, in addition to sore muscles all down my neck from whacking my head into the carriage wall!

Finally got home just before 11 pm and fell straight into bed, quite an event-filled day!

Where?

Bramham(53.8833333,-1.3500000), Warwick(52.0000000,-1.0000000), Oxford(51.7500000,-1.2500000), Reading(51.4333333,-1.0000000).