It’s typical of the overall shambles known as the British rail network that it gets disrupted when the weather is good, as well as when it’s wintery and the autumn leaves have fallen. When the French TGV is hurtling at 200 mph towards Marseille in temperatures exceeding 100F, I’m not sure that heat stressed track is much of an issue.

So it seems that in Britain, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and home of rail travel itself, the track on which our trains travel is sub-standard and prone to buckling under the sun. How the mighty have fallen.