I REALLY hope Andy Burnham can sort out the mess that is Northern Rail.


Without placing any blame on either side in the current dispute, it has made getting to my job in Manchester on strike days a nightmare!


On the day of the last action I was scheduled to teach English to a group of French Business students.


I can’t afford a car and set off at 6.40am for the two mile hike from home to Rainford Junction station to catch the 7.18am train.

A woman from Eccleston was also on the platform, like me unaware the RMT had chosen to strike again.


The guy in the signalbox came down to tell us our train had been cancelled. The next one was ‘possibly’ due to run in more than an hour’s time. So I got a taxi to St Helens Junction, just missing a train there with the next one … you guessed it… in an hour’s time.


I asked the man in the ticket office if there was any way of getting to Manchester more rapidly.

A train was leaving Earlestown which I might just make.


I grabbed another taxi there but had to stop to draw out some extra cash for my cab fare as I’d gone through all my money.


That train got me into Manchester just in time for me to start the course… though I was totally shellshocked by this time.


You couldn’t make it up.

All I was trying to do was get to my job and earn a wage. Instead it was the journey to hell and back.


Sorry rail strikers. You will get no sisterly solidarity from me... or my little girl who had a long wait for Mum to get home.


The only people to emerge with any credit on the day were our town’s cabbies, who did their utmost to help me.

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