Navigating britrail within the United Kingdom can be a real challenge. Though our britrail passes got us free trips to anywhere within the UK, the logistics of getting there were not always easy…
We planned to travel from Oxford, GB to Edinburgh, Scotland for our last weekend on the trip. Previously we had used our britrail passes many times and we believed that we were britrail pros. However, this proved to be false about an hour and a half into our trip.
For this particular trip we chose to avoid London like the plague, in hopes of avoiding delays. Our plan was to go through Manchester and then continue north to Scotland. Though that shortly proved to be problematic when our train leaving from Oxford was delayed by 15 minutes. 15 minutes does not seem to be very significant, but when it comes to rail travel, 15 minute delays easily become 45 minute delays.
Unfortunately for us, these 15 minutes quickly became an hour of delays. This meant that we would miss the only train heading for scotland that day. As soon as we realized this we knew we had to do something. We were over an hour away from Oxford, and there were 14 of us traveling to Edinburgh together. So, we went as far as we could go, which was manchester, and in manchester we got off to talk to a help desk. It was around 7pm by the time we were able to get off the train, and she informed us that because of our original delay, we would not be able to take a britrail train to edinburgh that day.
This is something that happens all the time with public transit, especially trains, and when it does it is frustrating. Though, we knew we had to advocate for ourselves and talk to the help desk about what they could do for us. It was not our fault, and most of the time they will reimburse you or put you up in a hotel for the night. These are often things you have to advocate for, and when you do, the problem isn’t just on you anymore.
Since we advocated for ourselves and explained our situation in detail to the help desk, they were able to charter 4 Taxis to take us from just north of manchester all the way to Edinburgh. That’s right, they chartered Taxis to take us all the way to Edinburgh at 3 am. Edinburgh was 3 and a half hours from where we were!
Advocating for yourself in a foreign country can be difficult, but if you just try and explain your situation, it often works in your favor! In the end we made it to Edinburgh. We had the best time of our lives, and a great story to tell our family and friends!