I love travelling by train!

We used to travel to boarding school in old steam trains on a journey that took five days and five nights - and what a bunch of school kids could get up to on these "lollipop specials" is a story for another time.

People complain about the trains here and so do I from time to time. But, as an adult, I lived in an area where there was one train that went up the South Island of New Zealand in the morning and one that came back at night - and even that has gone now. Public transport was a pipe dream rather than a reality in my area which was roughly the size of Cumbria with just as much isolation.

Anyway, this is all leading up to an experience last Friday. My colleague Jenny and I were going to Carlisle to meet another colleague, Pamela for a day out.

Jenny started from St Bees at 9am. I was waiting at Maryport, an unmanned station. It was freezing, rainy and windy. You couldn't get into the shelter at Maryport because the rain was coming from the wrong direction and you would have needed to swim in.

The train was due at 9.36. Jenny texted at about 9.15 to say there had been a landslide and train was stuck in Whitehaven.

In the end I was relaying messages from Jenny to other waiting passengers because at no stage did we have any information from the railway company.

Eventually Jenny and I decided to meet up in Workington because it looked as though there was a bus replacement service and I get sick on buses.

I got to Workington where I knew as much as staff but they were told the train was coming from Whitehaven at five miles and hour if I wanted to wait. I crossed the platform still freezing but at least there is a waiting room.

A staff member comes across to tell us: "Bus replacement only. No train."

I go back to the other side when I am hailed by a conductor - and here is the reason we should never replace train guards.

She has a train that is going nowhere. If I want to wait for Jenny and stay warm I could sit in the train.

Because this was a special day out I had brought treats - two small cans of Pimms and crisps and dip for the journey home and cream scones for the morning trip.

I texted Jenny to say where I was. She enters to be greeted by the conductor: "You must be Jenny. Your picnic awaits you."

By this time we had thrown caution to the winds and opened the cans of Pimms and were pouring them into glasses when the conductor rushes up to tell us there is a train coming though going to Carlisle.

With picnic falling everywhere we rush across the platform and take our seats just two seats up from where Jenny started her journey nearly two hours earlier.

Thank you to our lovely conductor Debra.Thank you to rail staff who still got us where we wanted despite the landslip but I wish they could find some way to warn passengers standing on unmanned platforms in the freezing cold!