Arriva

It's not a fast intercity train, it is a slow Welsh train.
So the first thing that happens is you feel the brakes go on, and as you've just come out of a bend it feels like the train is going to come off the track and run off the incline into a bright yellow field, somewhere just outside Shrewsbury, (or Tuesbury as we call it...)
You get a bit of that g-force feeling like you need to hold on to your seat, your kid, your i-phone.
And you vaguely realise something not normal is happening.
You look at your seat, child or i-phone and you think, "Shit!"
The train impacts. It sounds like an explosion. The train which has felt as if it were free wheeling suddenly feels as if it may take flight.
Simultaneously, the under carriage shudders like turbulence in a plane and a shower of what sounds like stones hitting the windows, and the train is still braking and you are still holding onto your seat, or your child, or your i-phone.
You think you must have hit a tree.
And then you really think the train is going to come off the tracks, and a quick glance reveals you now have a bigger drop, and then the train stops.
Shakes a little.
And starts to smoke.
You let go of your seat and you think "if I see flame...I run...with my kid, my i-phone."
Just as the fumes are getting a bit concerning the 'ticket lady' emerges and she says,
"Right, well we've just run over a cow..."
"How's the cow?"
"The cow is still under the train and there's a problem with the brakes but the driver is out there fixing it."
The driver manages to get the train moving enough to get to Church Stretton...where it is announced that anyone who wants to get out and have a cigarette can...under the circumstances...while the driver fixes the brakes...
At which point...everyone needs a cup of tea...but there's no trolley and there will be no trolley...
If the driver can't fix the train, we will be 'rescued' by another train, past experience tells me this will mean we will be crammed into the next train..which will already be full...I start praying the driver fixes the train.
The driver is the hero...he has engine trouble...but overcomes that...at the next station...
It may be the lack of tea...the lack of real disaster but when he deliverers us an hour late at Cardiff and we have to wait forty minutes for a train to Swansea....I'm starting to get a bit cynical...even though my kid's been a TROJAN and only hit me once, and only gone to the toilet three times...at Swansea  CK's whilst buying my son a prize, and some cream for the chocolate cake I'm baking tomorrow, I decide to email a complaint, with the view of getting a total refund...I start lamenting, 'We have no infra-structure,'....And then I tell myself, 'No, write the email and...you don't have to use Welsh trains...you can go to Birmingham and up...yes...that's the way'...
When I get home...that is a good cup of tea...mind!