My UK rail experience is about 15 years out of date, and mostly focused on commuter trains (with some London<->Manchester travel). I rapidly discovered that tim

My UK rail experience is about 15 years out of date, and mostly focused on commuter trains (with some London<->Manchester travel). I rapidly discovered that timetables were artful fictions, but that if there were supposed to be 4 trains per hour on a certain run, there typically would be 4 trains...just not the ones in the timetable. I craved a job in the Excuses Department of South-West Trains, who were responsible for announcements such as “The 19:41 train to London Waterloo will now arrive at 20:23, because of a crew member joining the train late in Portsmouth.” The creativity of these announcements was amazing. That said, I relied on the train service while I was in the UK. I can only think of one time that it ground to a halt, during a snowstorm that paralyzed the country.