...what can you do if nobody is paying any attention because this isn't happening in the metropolis? What do you do when the investigative journalists have mostly disappeared, along with the trains?

It isn't as if I have any great expertise in the railway world. I was just equipped with a strong sense that the phrase "temporary staff shortages" which accompany every cancellation wasn't the full story.

A conversation with rail staff confirmed this, so I posted a blog about it, and within three days it had been read by 40,000 people (it is now more 85,000 across two posts). When it reached 2,000, nearly 10 times the number who usually read what I write, I felt chuffed. As the figures rose, I began to feel unnerved.

Then the messages began to pour in, on email and Twitter, some anonymous, some logical, some incoherent with rage; there were leaked memos, quotes, facts, messages from company directors motionless at Clapham Junction, from guards, drivers and administrators. One platform staff member said they had just resigned after another horrendous shift being shouted at by furious passengers. I had a poignant message from a disabled passenger unable to travel because he could no longer phone ahead to ask for a ramp when the trains never arrived.