Think your commute’s bad? University professor tells of nightmare train journey home with Avanti West Coast which took 14 HOURS

•  Prof Macdonald’s departure from Coventry had already delayed by ten minutes

A rail commuter spent an ‘infuriating’ 14 hours travelling home after a succession of delays hit his Avanti West Coast service.

Prof Graeme Macdonald is a University of Warwick lecturer who works part of the week from home in Glasgow with two days on campus in Coventry.

But his usual five-hour journey home was almost trebled last Wednesday after Prof Macdonald finished a two-day stint working on campus.

The seasoned commuter said: ‘When (the trains work) it’s completely beautiful. But the unreliability is infuriating.’ 

Prof Macdonald’s departure from Coventry had already delayed by ten minutes before he set off, due to trespassers on the line. 

Prof Graeme Macdonald is a University of Warwick lecturer who works part of the week from home in Glasgow with two days on campus in Coventry

Passengers were also informed it would only be going as far as Preston.

But at the Lancashire station, around 200 people were already waiting for the next northbound train – which arrived 90 minutes late and, Prof Macdonald learned on boarding, would have to make additional stops.

He said the journey was then delayed by another two hours when a broken-down freight train caused the train to be sent back to Carlisle.

Passengers were promised taxis or a hotel, but Prof Macdonald said none were made available. He waited at the station and caught the morning train to Glasgow at 06:51 BST.

‘I kind of treat the train like an office, I can work on it, I read on it’, he told the BBC.

‘So in a way, an hour delay or a two-hour delay is annoying, yes, but it is kind of OK. But 14 hours was quite something.’

Prof Macdonald’s experience echoes that of comedian James Nokise, whose thread on X, formerly Twitter, about a ‘truly insane odyssey’ from London to Edinburgh with Avanti went viral last month.

The comedian travelled nearly 200 miles in a cab with strangers, finally arriving at 3am.

A spokesman for Avanti West Coast said there were significant delays earlier in the day on Wednesday due to a serious incident on the line in the Crewe area which disrupted services to Glasgow.

But Prof Macdonald’s usual five-hour journey home was almost trebled last Wednesday after Prof Macdonald finished a two-day stint working on campus in Coventry (Pictured: Coventry Railway station)

Prof Macdonald took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to reveal his ‘exhaustion’ from the nightmare journey home using Avanti West Coast services

A spokesman for Avanti West Coast said there were significant delays earlier in the day on Wednesday due to a serious incident on the line in the Crewe area

‘The impact was further exacerbated when an engineering train failed on the route, blocking the line and preventing our services getting to Scotland,” they added.’

The train company was threatened with being axed from the UK’s flagship West Coast Main Line after axing up to one in four services in 2022 due to driver shortage.

According to the operator’s latest statistics, 6.7 per cent of Avanti trains travelling between London and Scotland were cancelled in the past year, while 5 per cent were delayed for more than 30 minutes.

But last month Transport Secretary Mark Harper said the firm was ‘back on track’ as he announced its contract would be renewed for three more years – with the option of it being extended for a further six.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch accused the Government of ‘rewarding abject failure’ by renewing the contract of ‘one of the worst rail companies on the network’.

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