At Ashford at 0700 two trains leave in a flight. The first, which I normally take, goes to London Bridge and Cannon Street and the second to Waterloo East and Charing Cross.
This morning, as we waited to go there came an announcement that there were delays of 30 minutes through Sevenoaks, so we would be diverted through Maidstone East. The Charing Cross train, on the other hand, would take the normal route. So we should have been on the best train.
As we left, the anticipated delays through Sevenoaks rose to 50 minutes, making our train even more a good option, notwithstanding some slow running. It soon became apparrent that we were travelling behind a stopping train that was due to leave Ashford at the same time as us.
We came up through Chislehurst rejoining the usual route about 20 minutes late and reached London Bridge nearly 25 minutes late, while the Charing Cross train, far from being delayed by 50 minutes - or even 30 minutes - reached Waterloo East only 3 minutes late.
It's a very starnge event. Having made a sensible quick decision to divert our train from Ashford to avoid unneccessary delays, they sent us out just behind a stopping train. Had they held he stopper for 3 minutes, it would have been 3 minutes late (potentially recoverable) while we might have been closer to time. As it happens, if no-one had used their initiative we probably would have been closer to time in any case.
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