Blockage on the tracks

I've just got back from Reading, where I was visiting my new nephew (we exchanged the old one, it was rubbish). For non-Brits amongst you, Reading is pronounced with a hard "e" sound rather than an "ee" sound. So it's not the same as what you do to books. They have a big music festival there every year, so if you had mispronounced and misunderstood the town's name, the loud rock bands may be not quite what you had hoped for (Try Hay & Wye for an actual reading festival).

Travelling back up today, my train hit a slight snag south of Sheffield (nice illiteration there). We stopped and the driver informed us that he did not know the reason for the stoppage, but he could see some policemen on the line, so "they could be a clue". I hadn't realised that it was going to be a guessing game, I assumed that the drivers just got told why we stopped. But guessing game it was, if only for a few minutes. I had to play the game on my own though, as I was travelling alone and the carriage was fairly empty.

A few minutes later, all was revealed. Apparently there were some breeze blocks on the line (I hadn't managed to guess this - I was going for "woman tied to tracks"). These had been placed there by vandals, and we had to wait until the nice policemen removed them. I was pretty impressed that the driver didn't attempt to put the blame on Al Qaeda, since they seem to be blamed for most things at the moment. Have the bad terrorists stopped blowing hurricanes at Florida yet by the way?

So it was probably just kids. Kids with breezeblocks. Do young vandals just pop down to their local branch of Wickes to get these? "You're a bit young to be building a house aren't you small sirs?". "Yes - actually we thought we'd have a fun afternoon attempting to derail trains". "Oh that's alright then. Have fun!". It must happen all the time. Breezeblocks are quite heavy though, so at least the kids are getting some good exercise whilst attempting their mayhem.

But since I am here now, I have deduced that the blocks were removed and that our train was able to finish its journey and bring me safely back to York.