Nightmare journey already and I've only just left St Albans station.
Got to the station with around 10 mins spare which should have been plenty of time to buy my ticket. First hurdle: No cash in the first machine. Next machine is out of order. Go inside to find that the temporary machines they've had during the ticket office remodelling have gone. Try the ticket machine just in case they have started to accept Electron... Of course they haven't.
Back to the bike and off to the nearest cashpoint. In St Albans city. About a mile away. Up a big fucking hill.
Get back about 15 mins later just in time to see the 7:04 leave. Great, I'm into the big gap in the timetable where none of the trains stop at West Hampstead.
But wait, there's more. When I first entered the ticket office at 6:45 it was virtually empty. At 7:05 it is packed, with queues for every machine as well as for the main windows (and of course only two of the five windows are open)
While in the queue I notice that there is no longer a deparures board in the ticket hall and the guy I buy my ticket from can't tell me which platform the next train to West Hampstead leaves from. End up having to cross to platform 3 to check the board there befor coming back to platform one.
Am finally on the move but running way behind schedule.
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