I am presently in an internet cafe in Manchester. I should be half way back to London in the last Midland Mainline train via Leicester, but as it happened, I missed the train. I will instead be catching a midnight National Express coach back to London, which as a thing to do is a little annoying, and which will cost me an annoying but not horrendous sum of money (£19). Now, there is an interesting reason why I missed the train.

I arrived at the station in time to catch the train, around five minutes before it was due to leave. This station has two television screens near the ticket office giving departures and arrivals. Or, rather, giving arrivals and departures. That is, the arrivals screen is on the left, and the departures screen is on the right. I walked into the station, looked at the left screen, saw "London St Pancras: 19:02 Platform 4" on the screen, and walked to Platform 4. I then waited for a few minutes, and then heard an announcement saying that the train on Platform 2 was the 18:59 train to London St Pancras. I then ran to Platform 2 and the train was still there, but the guard (who was behind an open window on the train) explained that the doors had been locked and the driver had been informed he could go, so she couldn't let me on. The train (an Intercity 125 I think) seemed to have slam doors and I am not sure whether they actually were locked, but I took her word for it and did not attempt to board the train. (There is a genuine safety issue here, and I do respect this). I therefore missed my train. I then went back to check the departure screen, and again I saw "London St Pancras: 19:02 platform 4". I raised my camera to take a photograph of this to send to Midland Mainline. However, before actually taking the photo, I finally noticed that the "Departures" screen was the one on the right, rather than on the left as is usual. I realised that I had missed my train because I had confused "Departures" and "Arrivals", and I was annoyed with myself. (Unfortunately I did not actually take the photo for this blog post).

My ticket was an advance purchase valid this train only valid Midland Mainline only ticket, but if this had not been the last train of the evening, I would have boarded the next train anyway. (Often conductors have a little discretion and will often allow passengers to catch the next train after the one their ticket is strictly valid for, because there are plenty of reasons for missing a train that are the fault of the operator - late connecting services for instance). However, it was the last train of the (Saturday) evening, and Midland Mainline have no Sunday service from Manchester to London, so my options were to board the next Virgin service to Euston (and probably pay another fare, as there is really no good reason why Virgin should honour a Midland Mainline only ticket) find some non-rail way back to London, or wait until Monday morning. Even if I tried the Virgin option, I would have had to wait until the next morning, as the last Virgin service of the evening had already departed. Which would mean I would have to find and pay for another night's accommodation. So the National Express coach was looking better and better. (Bring on Megabus, however).

I will write to both Midland Mainline and whichever operating company runs Stockport station, and point this out. (I may even mention that I write for Transport Blog), explaining that yes it was my fault and not asking for any recompense, but pointing out that standardisation of departure signs is very important. Because far more people look at departure boards than arrival boards, it is normal to put departures on the left. (Or, often there is a departure board and no arrivals board. And if you do not do this, confusion and missed trains will occur as a consequence. As happened to me tonight).