For quite a while.

Eventually the driver diagnosed the fault: the train had lost power. After 20 minutes or so he rebooted the whole thing (lights out, power down, power up, little effect) and we eventually crawled on to Stratford where we were all turfed off.

The most frustrating thing about that, apart from the fact that it meant we were thrown onto a platform that was already full of people waiting to get on, was the fact that our train had actually started to go quite quickly after a long, gentle ramp-up.

Nonetheless, the driver was (quite rightly) not prepared to take it any further, so it sat in the platform for ages, blocking the line.

We took an all-stations back to Shenfield and changed there, eventually getting home two hours and 40 minutes after leaving work. That’s not good on a 30-mile journey.

Sadly, though, the trains were still struggling. At least on National Express East Anglia. We arrived in good time for the 07h49 to find it had switched platforms. Fine – we can cope with that – except that platform one, where it was due to arrive, was still waiting for the 43. It came and it went, but there were so many people we couldn’t get on. Ditto the 49 when it turned up. Ditto the 53, which had been reduced from 12 to eight coaches.

We eventually got on the 57, and to be fair it was a good run in, but as with past years 2010 hasn’t had a good start for commuters across the country. The heavy snowfall has happened the smooth running of the trains and left plenty of passengers either crammed onto overcrowded services or waiting on frozen platforms.

That’s why we, like many others, spend three days last week working from home.

That would have been packed, so I took a Southend train, intending to ride as far as Shenfield and then change. Not so. It was full when we left Liverpool Street, and when we got to Stratford we picked up all the people who would have got on there not only to that train but also to the cancelled Chelmsford trains.

It was packed to the gunnels, so I even lost the space where I was sitting on the floor.

So I got off, and got an all-stations to Shenfield, then had to change and get on a Chelmsford train which, when it arrived, was only four coaches long. So, back to standing.

Two things to note about this:

1. First class was relatively cheap. About £99 return for a 700 mile journey.
2. The trains were fast, smooth, and efficient, and the staff spoke more than just one language.

Compare this to the experiences we’ve had since we got back on Sunday night.

First, the tube line we needed to take when we arrived back in London was closed, so we had to take a taxi. Despite the fact that we were trying to pick one up at St Pancras, the station that’s home to the Eurostar, and thus the first experience many visitors have of the country, it took us 35 minutes to get to the front of the queue. Then we got stuck in traffic. For ages.

Monday morning, back on the train in to London, delays due to an emergency speed restriction. And on the way home, delays because the train in front of us had a problem with one of its doors.

And then tonight: more delays because of signal problems at Romford.

Utterly hopeless, and all the more depressing when you’ve got something to compare it to.

On the way home, much the same: delays and a cancellation had me sitting on one of the most crowded trains I’ve seen in a long time, fortunately on a seat but among standing crowds that stretched the full length of each aisle.

And tonight, here I am, blogging by free wifi on the same company’s East Coast route. Admittedly the line has seen significant upgrades over the years, as a route of its stature would deserve, but it serve to show what can be done on an efficient, well-resourced service.

I suspect my commuting days will be long gone by the time we get this kind of service on the East Anglia line, whoever is running the service by then.

More or less.

My train was delayed, but not by much more than usual, which is impressive when you consider the potential for broken rails and frozen points.

Three cheers for the rail companies.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped plenty of people complaining about the state of the service, but I don’t think they have much of a point. Yes, you could snow-proof the whole network for those occasional days once every couple of decades when we get 8 inches of snow in 24 hours, but the cost would be unjustifiable when you consider the marginal benefit of saving a few cities’ commuters a day of working from home.

Besides, working from home is quite fun now and then, and you get far more done.

So to those who are blaming the fact they didn’t get to work yesterday on the trains, hush now.

On the other hand, those who find it ludicrous that not a single bus ran in London – not one – or that an inch of snow can cause more havoc than we’ve seen this week have a very valid point indeed.

Coming home from there on Friday evening should have been easy: Piccadilly Line to Holborn and then Central to Liverpool Street and on to the over-ground. Except it wasn’t. The Central Line was closed from Marble Arch to Leytonstone because of a ‘passenger under a Central Line train at Liverpool Street’. Code for ‘suicide’.

So we stayed on the Piccadilly Line until Kings Cross, changed there onto the Ham & City Line and continued our journey.

Now there’s no real reason why closure of the Central Line should affect those cut and cover lines. They’re at a much higher level than the Central Line and there is no platform-level intersection. Except they still closed Liverpool Street on all the other lines, too, which would have been fine if they’d given us plenty of notice.

Had we known, we could have got off at Moorgate and walked. It’s about five minutes, tops, and we know the way well. Except they didn’t announce it until after we’d already passed through, leaving us no choice but to sit pretty until Aldgate and then work out how we got back, along with a dozen other lost commuters.

Now I can’t blame the tube for the problems on the Central Line, and if there are good operational reasons I could overlook the problems on the Ham & City, too, but giving us no notice until it was already too late to get off was the hopeless.

In the end, we didn’t get home until half past midnight. Our ‘do’ had finished at ten past ten.

We opted for a day in the office, and it looks like we were in the minority. This was my usually packed rush-hour train in to work this morning. I had three carriages all to myself.