Nightmare trip to the Netherlands

If I took the 7:16 train from Bangor, I would make my connection in London even if not all went well. I would then be in Amsterdam at about 8pm. Just enough time for a beer with Roelof before bedtime! 

The train was on time, and all went well. The Eurostar appeared on time. I got in and made myself comfortable. But we didn’t leave. 

After a while there was an announcement. Someone had been hit by a train in Lille or Brussels or somewhere we intended to go. We couldn't leave. They would keep us posted.

An hour went by. Sometimes we got an announcement that there wasn't any further news. Another hour went by. I was wondering if I should just give up and take the train back. I could still be back home at a reasonable hour.

After two hour and 15 minutes we could finally set off. I figured that I could still make it to the Netherlands. Probably not to see Roelof, though. But I could probably get to where my mum lives. I have the key; I can just sneak in and go to bed without disturbing her if needs be.

We got to Lille without any further problems. But when the people who wanted to get off there had got off, we didn't leave. After a while there was another announcement. There was another problem! This time it was technical. The announcer mentioned that the train driver was going through the repair manual and was hoping to fix it. Christ. 

Eventually, we could leave. There was a cheer through the whole train. So we were on our way to Brussels. We could even go over the high-speed line; I had the impression that that one had been closed because of the accident. But we weren't very speedy. And then we stopped, we were in Ruisbroeck. Not Brussels. There were more announcements. We were getting fed up. This time the issue was that there wasn't a platform free in Brussels. We had to wait for one to become available. That took a while.

By the time we finally rolled into Brussels, we had a delay of about four hours. And it was unclear how much more it would be. Train travel around Brussels had been quite disrupted.

I saw on a board with departures that in about an hour’s time, there would be a Eurostar to Amsterdam. It was the Eurostar of an hour earlier, being delayed. That would be fine for me. To my surprise, there was already a train at the platform. It was a Eurostar. I tried the door. It opened!

A creepily empty Brussels South with creepily empty Eurostar trains

The train was eerily silent and very messy. Not everything felt right about it. And it didn't have Internet. I wanted to let people know what my situation was, so I decided to disembark again. I was looking for signal, and doing so came across two Eurostar employees, who unfortunately didn't seem to speak anything other than French. But they did tell me that the train was actually not going to leave. They told me to take another one. It wasn't clear which one then.

More looking at departure boards revealed a train to Rotterdam. I decided to just go for that. I found a ticket machine and was glad to see that it was a reasonable price to get to Rotterdam. And I checked: it would be possible to get to both Amsterdam and Amersfoort from there. It would be late, but I wouldn't be stranded!

I got into that train, which also looked eerily empty. But that changed. Soon it filled up with tired Dutch people. And a confused man who didn't speak English (or Dutch) who wanted to know if this train went to Gare du Nord. We said no, because we all thought he was talking about Paris. But he was talking about Brussels. The correct answer was yes. We apologised…

We got to Rotterdam, where I knew there was a chance I could get the train to Gouda, if all went well. It didn't. The next train was a direct train to Amersfoort, which would still get there later than the Gouda one. I got in. And it went.

When the ticket inspector came along it turned out I had needed a surcharge for this train. I hadn’t realised that. I had never been on one before! And I had also been on trains since 7:15. It was now 23:11 local time. But she had mercy on me and only gave me a warning. That was kind of her! Otherwise, nothing went wrong during that trip. It wasn't even raining when I got to my destination. And 00:15 local time I got out in Amersfoort. When I got to my mum’s, she was still awake. I had made it! Finally!