Thanks, it'll be faster if I walk ...

Seems that it will take 18 hours to take the train from Kettering, UK to London (a distance of 295 miles). Which brings several thoughts to mind:

1. Yeah, I had a car like that once, too. A Renault ... [/snark]

2. In 18 hours, you can drive from Boston to St. Louis. 1100 miles. People who think that we should make our government look like European governments should think about this.

3. For both my European readers, that's like driving from Berlin to Barcelona. Except half of the way is on autobahn, so it'd probably only take 12 hours.

4. When a private company messes up, you hear the usual suspects tisk-tisking. I'm sure that the same folks will suggest scaling back on the UK.gov's "disastrous adventure" in public transport in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

But UK readers should not despair:

The reason for this madness is, as you've probably guessed, the traditional bank holiday weekend engineering works. Mercifully, East Midlands Trains said it was laying on an alternative service from Kettering via Leicester and Peterborough (three hours, two minutes), but that tickets weren't yet available.

No word as to whether tickets will go on sale before the train departs.