How to: Miss not only one, but two trains, on the same day

Today was hectic, but almost adventurous. And after today I know that missing two trains, on the same day, is possible – even if one’s in time.
My booked X2000 train was leaving from Stockholm at 14:22 pm from track 10. No problem so far but what if the same type of train was arriving just five minutes earlier – with a completely different destination?

Stressed and thinking that I was a bit late I hurried to platform 10 and recklessly jumped on the train at the platform. I was looking for my seat and found a mother and her child occupying both the seats. I asked them to check if there was a double booking, something that rarely happens thou, and when she said “yes these are my seats” I started thinking if they might be on the wrong train.
This took about 1 and a half minute and it was just enough for the train to start rolling towards – that I found out just the minute later – Gothenburg.

Not to bad after all, I usually travel there to get home, but the thing is that my plans and my booked train today was scheduled to go to Norrköping to Caroline and her parents.
My heart beat pretty fast and I thought that this is not only going to take a lot more time but also cost a lot more cash. I wasn’t too fond of either of those facts.
I rushed through the train to find any one of the train crew to ask if I was entirely screwed. The lady in black and white with a perfectly tied red tie told me that “there’s no problem – just get off in Södertälje and you’ll be able to jump on your train that was supposed to leave ten minutes after our train...”.
So I did and found out that another person had made the same mistake as I did. I wasn’t too worried after this but as we stood, deserted and abandoned at the vast platform with no signs of any scheduled stop of our original train, I started to think that maybe the clippie didn’t checked her facts before telling me it was okay.

The other person that was in the same situation as me didn’t have as much patience as I had and started to call the train booking support to make sure the train would stop. As she spoke, an X2000 blasted by in 200 kilometres, leaving nothing but dust in my eyes and mouth.
“That’s our train...” I said to her and smiled at the irony of it all. The support worker in her phone told her to get a new ticket so that’s what I did as well.

“Waste of time and cash – just as I thought...”

As I sat, waiting for another two hours until the next , I really couldn’t get over the fact that being too early actually was costing me extra time and money. It really bugged the shit out of me.
I started to read the paper and after that I wrote a summary of my day on it, since I didn’t have any regular blank paper in my study material. “This is going to be a good post in the log...”, I thought and smiled.
Things were just about to get worse...

My new train was scheduled to leave at 17:02. The ticket said:

17:02 ... Södertälje – Flemingsberg ... 17:16
17:18 ... Flemingsberg – Norrköping ... 18:33

At the black board time schedule there were two trains with the new time to arrival added to the original time:

17:05 ...Stockholm ... (Intercity) Track 6
17:07 ...Linköping/Norrköping (Regional) Track 8

What would you chose?

Of course I went to track 8.
Consider the fact that track 8 and 6 are at different platforms and it takes approximately two minutes to get from one platform to the other. When I stood at track 8 I looked at my ticket one last time because I really didn’t want to miss yet another train. Then it hit me – what if I’m supposed to go back to Stockholm in order to change train to Norrköping. Also, the original departure time was matching with the train arriving at track 6. If that wasn’t enough the ticket also said Intercity – not Regional.
I thought “this is not happening...” and when I turned around to look over at the other platform I saw a train there, ready to leave.

I ran like a fucking cheetah down the many stairs, elbowing my way through. When I got up on the other platform and I saw my train leave in a distance. “fucking aye?! this is NOT happening(!)...”.

My first reaction was to hit my foot really hard into the closest thing beside me – a ten centimetre thick iron balk holding the roof up over the platform. I cursed for a while but stopped when I saw that I was surrounded by children going on a field trip. My second reaction was to think: “Oh fuck, there’s still a way to get there...” and I instantly began to run down the stairs again. “The other train towards Norrköping havn’t left yet..!”.

Another minute of cursing and kicking iron balks would make me miss my third train this day. Luck was on my side and I did catch the train. After some smooth talk with the clipper I was allowed to border the train without a valid ticket.
Come to think of it I bought two tickets á 370SEK in total for two separate trains to get to Norrköping and didn’t even take one of them. In total I spent an extra 170SEK and almost 5 hours on a trip that should have taken 1 hour and 12 minutes for 200SEK.

No sad face thou, as I said: It was an adventurous trip and I finally got there – if yet not in time.

All roads lead to Rome...