So I'm sitting in the customer service lounge in Birmingham New Street....I get called to the desk and the Lady explains that they think they have found my case, it has been dropped off at Wolverhampton, but I will have to go to Wolverhampton myself to get it.
There'll be a train to Wolverhampton leaving in 6 minutes. So off I go to platform 6 and jump on the Wolverhampton train. It sits there for about 5 minutes and then there is an announcement that I couldn't make out and several people start getting off the train. I ask the person beside me what was said, meanwhile the started asking me what the announcement was as they were plugged into their CD player (or such), so I ask the next passing passenger. "Sorry, I'm deaf" was the reply! However the next passenger was able to tell us that the train was cancelled and we would have to find alternative transport. (It had been due to make 4 stops on the way to Wolverhampton) So back up to the concourse to find out the next Wolverhampton train - platform 7, then shortly after, platform 6A. Back down I go, just in time to see the Wolverhampton train pulling away from platform 7. Off I scurry to platform 6A and there's an announcement that the train on Platform 6B will be leaving shortly for Wolverhampton and will only be calling at Wolverhampton. Off I scurry to platform 6B (6A and 6B are the two ends of the same platform) and jump on it, hoping this time it will actually go somewhere. This, by the way, is the Wolverhampton train I was first on, that got cancelled!
It did actually leave soon after and eventually trundled into platform 5B in Wolverhampton. %b is a dead-end platform and is the other side of platform 1. There is a Customer Services Lounge there. I enter and ask about my case. The guy behind the desk makes a phone call and then tels me to go to the Customer Services on platform 2. Off over the bridge I go and look for the Customer Services place - nothing is evident. I then realize that the Waiting Room has a desk/counter at one end. In I go and ask about my case (I could tell it was mine as soon as he lifted it up) he asked for the key for the padlock and only let me have the case once the key opened the padlock. JOY! Me and my case are re-united!!!
Now, what do I do? I am about an hour and a half behind schedule and am at Wolverhampton, not Birmingham (where I was supposed to be getting a train that stopped at Motherwell) I could go back to Birmingham and see what was available from there. I could just wait for the next Virgin train to Glasgow central and get a train back to Motherwell from there (I knew the Virgin trains went through Wolverhampton) or I could look at the destination board from Wolverhampton and see if there was any other/better option.
Looking at the departure board I saw that a Virgin train to Glasgow had left about 5 minutes ago, so started to trawl my way down to see what else there was in the not too distant future (back to Birmingham was begining to look like a strong possibility) when I realised that the board was telling me that the '5 minutes ago' Virgin train was late and was now expected to arrive in a couple of minutes, on Platform 1. So I abandoned all other thoughts and lugged my case back over the bridge to platform 1. After a few seconds of standing on platform one and with a train approaching the station, there is an announcement that 'The train approaching platform 2 is the (late) Virgin service to Glasgow central'. Arrggghhhh! Now I have to lug my case back over the bridge to platform 2....and the train's already in the station!!!
I make it OK and plop into the first available seats and finally relax realising that I am actually feeling hungry, not surprising really as it's now about 3:30 and the last time I ate was about 9 that morning. And for my pains my sandwiches were pretty tasteless! 
PS Very few of the trains to and from London stop at Motherwell now and the East Coast trains stop at, and run from, Edinburgh.
barging on to the train before we had all got off and my case had been moved from where I put it and then I was on the platform and the train was away with my case (or, what might have been worse, someone else was away with my case.)
I think that's true of the British as a whole not just the English 
