so a couple of weeks ago when drinking i decided to look up some train tickets and found to my surprise that i could do the settle to carlisle line which is renowned as one of the best railway trips in the world for only 29 pounds return with advance singles and as that seemed like a pretty good deal i thought i might as well go for it so i booked the tickets for the 9th february which was yesterday but a couple of days after i made the booking i discovered that northern were striking on saturdays albeit for a good reason but it was still annoying since it meant that my trains would be cancelled but fortunately northern had arranged ticket acceptance with virgin so i would be able to travel to carlisle anyway but then i had a genius idea as i knew i would be visiting carlisle later anyway so i decided to extend my trip to glasgow so i bought a couple more advance singles for quite a low price and thought that my problems were over but that wasn't the case as on the morning of the 9th i opened the national rail enquries app and discovered to my horror that all lines were blocked between motherwell and carstairs which was where my train would be going later today but they said they would have it cleared up by 8 so i didnt worry about it too much and i went to selly station and then went to new street and then got on my train at new street where i basically had the entire quiet carriage to myself which was amazing but we were soon on our way and although the ticket lady thought northern trains were running as normal i was quick to tell her that was not the case and she was okay with me staying on the train to carlisle but said i wouldnt be guaranteed a seat which i already knew but this made me slightly anxious as i quite liked my window seat and someone had reserved it from oxenholme lake district but i thought id tackle that issue when it came to it and looked out of the window for a while and saw the rainbow train again at stafford but effed up my photo of it but we continued on our journey and soon made it to preston where we sat for a while because it turned out that we didnt have a driver which was a major problem since trains need drivers so we waited for a bit but then a driver turned up so we set off again but slowed to a halt again shortly after so i assumed we were stopped at a signal since we were following a delayed service but no it turned out there was a tree on the line which was bad because trains cant go through trees so we sat and waited and waited some more and eventually the tree was moved and we set off again 60 minutes late which meant we would get all of our tickets reimbursed so free money which i like and we got to lancaster without any more issue and then proceeded to oxenholme lake district where a lady came towards me clearly wanting my seat so i moved to the next one and offered it to her but she was too awkward and went and found another seat which was fantastic since i could see the lovely scenery on the way up to carlisle which frankly was stunning so my trip was still good but i realised as we came into carlisle that we were only running 59 minutes late so id only get half of my ticket reimbursed which was really irritating but i got out at carlisle and waited for my connection which was also delayed behind us and soon it trundled in and i got on my seat which was in front of a woman who kept coughing and we were off again but then stopped for no apparent reason somewhere on beattock so when we eventually arrived into glasgow central we were 40 minutes late so i would be claiming for this train too but nevertheless my day in glasgow was very nice and i went into a waitrose but as the sun was setting i decided to check the trains home and after laughing at the people on the 1800 who had their train cancelled i realised that i was one of those people so i had to get the next train which was 40 minutes later so i would be claiming for this as well and perhaps i could make some serious money out of this trip but eventually i got on the train home and although i was very tired i arrived home four and a bit hours later and made all my delay repay claims before going to bed