London Northwestern did its best to spoil our day with

some crass planning and a lack of joined-up thinking that simply beggared belief. Here, 350245 arrives on-time into Northampton station with the 10.13 Euston to Birmingham New Street. This was our train to Rugby for a five minute connecting train, also London Northwestern, to Tamworth. To begin with, our train was held at Northampton for an extra three minutes by a red light, studying Open Train Times revealed no reason for this with no conflicting movements or trains in front. Then, the train travelled to Long Buckby and thence Rugby, at a pedestrian pace that was way under the speed limit, observations outside revealed no evidence of any TSRs. So, as we pulled into Rugby's platform one, our connecting train was also pulling in side by side into platform two next to us. Now then, why was it that no thoughtful members of staff, be they drivers, guards or dispatchers thought to themselves, 'hmm, why not just hold the Crewe train for say a minute or two to let the significant number of passengers change platforms'. No chance, the Crewe train was dispatched in I what I would say was record time. It's ridiculous situations like this that simply would not have happened in the pre-privatisation British Rail times when common sense prevailed. Anyway, the upshot was that an hour and a half was added to our journey time to Leeds with a lot of staff head-scratching at New Street with a comment that we may be excessed on one of our legs further north, 'uhh, I don't think so!' What an utter farce that could so easily be avoided with no impact or effort on anybody's part.