My chaotic ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ Christmas journey home

It has become our grimmest of festive traditions: Christmas getaway misery.

This year, the arrival of Storm Pia, coupled with a surprise strike by Eurotunnel staff, a broken-down train and – at least according to video circulating on social media – a plastic bag caught on overhead power lines somewhere between Stoke and Crewe stations, has gifted us the full house: grounded flights, motorway closures and rail chaos, with all trains cancelled from London’s Euston station, ever the nadir of festive journeys home.

With travellers reportedly left sleeping at stations overnight, National Rail warned that the fun was set to continue today, with the winning combination of staff shortages and the promise of 80mph winds, compounded by major engineering works.

And how’s this for a Christmas gift? Today, it was announced that rail fares are to rise next year by almost 5 per cent.

Meanwhile, on the last working day before Christmas, motorists have been advised to travel only after 6pm. You can imagine the traffic on the roads tonight.

As one of the thousands caught up in yesterday’s disruption, I had dutifully checked that my train was still running before getting on the Tube to Euston. By the time I’d arrived, the gates were shut to the hundreds of us outside the concourse, with not a soul in sight to tell us what was happening. Use your expensive ticket out of there? You must be joking.

As a northerner living in London, this was not my first rodeo – I wasn’t about to wait around for a hellishly crushed and slow journey, if and when our train services resumed. Hiring a car from the nearest rental outlet I could find, I arrived piled high with bags, only to be told by Santa’s stony-faced (no) helpers that it was a case of computer says yes but we say no: if they gave me the car I’d booked, they’d have none left to give to the other people who had booked cars home. Which was logic of a sort.

With the smell of burning credit card plastic in my wake, I raced off to Heathrow, where – insanely – one of the last business-class tickets to Manchester, which would let me bring my bags of presents, was still far cheaper than the car I’d tried to hire.

More delays followed, naturally – so by the time the fully packed flight wobbled down onto the runway, into howling winds, I had been travelling for 10 hours. Thank St Nicholas for the friendly BA crew, dispensing drinks like Quality Street.

Needless to say, it doesn’t actually have to be this way. Weather happens and strikes occur here just as they do elsewhere. And yet, somehow, other countries manage to keep transport going through three feet of snow while, in the UK, the stretch of rail somewhere between Watford and Milton Keynes seems to rival the Bermuda Triangle for things going mysteriously wrong.

In places like Japan, trains and buses leave on time to the minute – a jaw-dropping level of efficiency to weary Brits used to falling onto back-up plans for any public transport journey longer than a bus ride into town.

Even as we’re encouraged to ditch our cars, anyone attempting to catch the train cross-country in recent days will be promising themselves a future Christmas miracle: never again.

And Rishi Sunak and co beware: few at Euston yesterday were accepting the mass meltdowns as yet another act of God. ”This country has no f***ing infrastructure,” I heard one furious man shouting down his phone, close to tears. How many of those thousands struggling to make their Christmas plans will have been wondering if cancelling the HS2 link to Manchester, once the country’s major transport project, was the wisest idea?

This week’s promise to reallocate millions of pounds of those funds to – checks notes – yes, filling in the capital’s potholes, may, astonishingly, not prove a vote winner with that cohort.

And yet, it’s Christmas, so it’s time to look for silver linings. For those not fortunate enough to escape by hook or by crook, who find their festive plans upturned – there may be some hope. The past few years mean that, by now, sadly, we’re used to having plans disrupted at the last moment. Remember December 2020, when Covid stole Christmas and plunged many of us into a tier 4 lockdown? We have done this before. Harold Macmillan had it right when he was asked what the greatest challenge was for a statesman, and we now know the same holds for all of us: “Events, dear boy, events.”

Which means we can also appreciate the unexpected joys of an impromptu Christmas plan B: a turkey lunch at a favourite restaurant rather than braving a relative’s mystery dip; a Boxing Day walk through familiar streets now emptied of commuters; a night spent not engaged in a showdown over switching the channel away from GB News, but celebrating with chosen friends.

And for those lucky enough to be unaffected by the turmoil, please spare a thought for any travellers you know who might still be stuck, or lonely, or simply unable to fork out the cost of another ticket home, and perhaps consider inviting them to share your table.

And however long or short your journey might be, may yours be a very Merry Christmas.