Train delay and School comments

Truly, life's a bitch and then you die, so shut up, don't complain and just be a bit more resilient are the most important lessons we can all teach our children.

I wouldn't be a 'bit happy' that my child got home at gone 3am, but given that he hasn't had a school trip for 5 years, that's unlikely to be a problem anyway.

My kids have developed the attitude that is probably the most useful for life in the UK, namely "Don't get too excited, it will probably be canceled".

I’m not sure there is much more Avanti could have done. Rail companies are severely limited in which coach companies they can hire from as they are not allowed vehicles that do not have a wheelchair lift in order to comply with accessibility regulations and very few coaches of the size needed feature such a lift.

Given this is MN I’m surprised nobody has complained about the chips.

You’re so right OP, fuck it, they should have ate cake rather than chips innit.

What would the children learn?

What 13 years of Tory rule can do ?

Funnily enough something extremely similar happened when I was a young teen. Hundreds of us from multiple schools had to disembark the train, walk to a nearby station where we waited until the early hours for taxis and extra adults arrived to drive us the 3 hours home.All I took from the experience is that the rail network is shit. And that has proven to be true. It was very much a non event in my life, yes I remember it, no it wasn't traumatic, neither did I gain anything from it.

Talk about living in a bubble. Are you aware of the reality of most kids and parents lives?

All of this. Plus many of them will have lived without heating last winter and be experiencing the same this winter. They will have less food in the cupboards because those prices have increased exponentially too. They are possibly learning elbow to elbow in overcrowded classrooms with 32 kids rammed in and often with a non specialist supply teacher in front of them.

How many more opportunities to learn that things are shit and you have to be resilient do you want them to have?

Medals for those poor teachers who got the kids home safely.

Anyone trying to spin this as a positive experience for anyone can get in the bin.

How else will children learn that things do not go to plan.

Indeed. I understand that the current shocking state of the railways is part of a grand scheme to develop greater resilience and self reliance in young people, a follow on from other initiatives aimed at a wider demographic, such as Brexit and Trussonomics. Short of an actual war, it’s an effective way to inculcate a wartime spirit, proven by past experience to be vital to stiffening the collective backbone of the country and ensuring stiff upper lips all round.

FFS. Have you ever been on a school trip where you are responsible for 50+ children that are not your own? I'm guessing not. Those adults didn't need to have their 'resilience' built, they needed to get home to their own children, while making sure other peoples' children were safe. Don't be ridiculous.

It sounds like an absolute nightmare for the teachers who did their best in a very difficult situation.
I’m not sure it taught the kids anything useful, it probably makes teachers that bit less likely to bother next time.
I used to work for a “school trips” provider and the hoops teachers have to jump through I’m surprised any of them bother

avanti was totally shit here but I mostly blame the Tory party for underinvestment in the railways and re-awarding avanti the WCML contract

All they learned is that if things go wrong on a school trip, they get treated to chips on an empty station platform while their poor teachers sort everything out. Hardly character building stuff.

I partially agree it's very snowflakey of parents to be complaining and upset.
I'm in Scotland it. Was even on the Scottish news last night
" school kids got home via a coach after train issue"
Ermmmmm not newsworthy .
As a parent I'd be concerned about the delay but not worried for their safety

Things don’t go to plan. You can show resilience in dealing with that and still complain about Avanti’s piss poor ability to run a train service.

Perhaps Avanti need to learn to run a resilient train service that actually bloody works in getting passengers from A to B regularly.

There are lots of opportunities in life where things don't go to plan - being pleased children end up with a 5hr travel delay so they arrive home in the early hours of the morning on a school night so they can further some life skills is a bit uncomfortable to be honest. This generation of children are having to deal with so much, covid, the explosion of social media, the cost of living crisis, watching the war in Ukraine unfold - I personally wish them some plain sailing and hope they can still have a good childhood.

Maybe pick quotes which

1. Actually give context
2. Make your point...

What happened was a train was cancelled 3 hours from its destination. Passengers were told they could get the next train but it was full (unsurprisingly being as it was rush-hour). They were then told they could catch the next train. Which was cancelled. So, eventually, taxis were arranged to take 100s of passengers 3 hours away. This took a while. Due to the fact the school had a whole class and only 5 teachers and the children weren't allowed in the taxis alone and the children obviously couldn't be left alone either, the taxi solution was not viable for them. So the teachers had to arrange their own coach off their own back because this was the only way to get them home. They also arranged food for the kids because it was so late and they were going to miss tea. They got them back home in the early hours of the next day.

Nothing suggests that these kids were showing any "lack of resilience". They will have seen how their teachers worked to make a bad situation work out.

The poor teachers will have been stressed trying to arrange all of this as well as fielding calls from the school no doubt who would be fielding calls from the parents (unless they also happen to have one of these apps where you can contact the teacher or the teacher's email whereby they'd also be fielding messages from worried/angry/concerned/overly helpful parents too)

This didn’t happen when Virgin ran the line. 100% Avanti’s fault - you can’t just cancel a train while it’s running 3 hours away from their destination and expect people to just accept it

Your bingo card is a bit light! I recall my parents' train suddenly terminating at 11pm, forty miles from home, it was during a Labour administration!!
It's probably the part of their trip that the children will remember longest just like who was sick on the bus and so on. A friend was stuck in Italy with a school party during the Icelandic eruption, they survived too.

Kids being kids probably viewed it as a big adventure. I sincerely hope they weren't expected in school next day 😉

Exactly! I would prefer that my children learned that public transport can be trusted. Like other countries manage! Not the school's fault, but absolutely not OK of the rail network.

Gosh, how could this generation build resilience
Well, they have coped with a global pandemic.