Time to return from Brodick, Isle of Arran, to Morpeth. We had chosen a different route noting that at 13:20, it is both cheaper and quicker to go from Glasgow Central to Carlisle then via Northern direct to Morpeth. Fate however was against us, because shortly after Motherwell, our Virgin train ground to a halt. This time, it seemed, it was a freight train that had failed in front of us. After an hour or so waiting, the train was slowly reversed back to Glasgow, returning us there some 2 hours after we had first left. Virgin said the train would go eventually, they just didn’t know when, and advised us to stay on the train. But I was getting worried about becoming stranded at Carlisle so asked if our tickets be valid on LNER services, or even Scotrail to Edinburgh. “No” came back the reply, which given the length of the delay and the inability to offer an updated expected arrival time at Carlisle, I thought was most unhelpful. Furthermore, no-one seemed able to tell us which of the Scotrail routes to Edinburgh were similarly affected by the delay. In the end, we were obliged to purchase new tickets via Edinburgh then completed the remainder of our journey without incident, but still arrived back at Morpeth 3 hours later than intended.
