Train travel hasn't been far from the headlines this year.
We've had train workers on strike, repercussions from Covid and endless cancellations and delays. Many people have been forced to swap the railways for the road amid the problems.
But one passenger faced a particularly outlandish issue a few days ago. On December 27, Alex Cruden tried to book a train between Birmingham and Sheffield, the Metro reports.
He searched for potential routes and ticket options on the Trainline app, which suggested the journey - including a CrossCountry service to Manchester Piccadilly - would take 17,724,422 hours and 17 minutes. This is equivalent to 2023 years, 121 days and 14 hours.
Alex screenshotted the suggested journey - which had one change - and posted it to Twitter, reaching thousands of people. He wrote: "I knew the trains were going to be a problem today but the Trainline is telling me my journey to Sheffield is going to take over 2000 years."
Trainline replied to his tweet and wrote: "2,021.99 years? You could finish War and Peace (a few times), reorganise your junk mail (once), relax after Christmas with the family (for the last thousand)."
Alex told the Metro that he decided to travel by car instead after his relatives offered to help out. He said: "Well there was quite a big chance of me getting stranded in Birmingham, and my brother and fiancée were kind enough to agree to do half the journey each.
"I was very lucky – most people won’t have that option when faced with public transport problems."
He added: "Having a tweet go viral was funny. I’d actually been trying to use social media less recently, so I was pretty surprised when my phone started pinging with loads of notifications."
Train strikes were taking place across the UK on December 27, with many operators issuing 'do not travel' warnings. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union have walked out several times this year in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions for rail workers.
Passengers have been told to brace for more travel chaos in the new year, ahead of five straight days of strikes set to hit rail services in Greater Manchester. Rail passengers have been warned of severely disrupted train services in the first week of 2023 as two rail unions are to take strike action over five days between them.
The union strikes between January 3 and 7 will result in 'very limited' trains running for passengers. Manchester Piccadilly, the second busiest station in the United Kingdom outside London, will see just four trains leave per hour during the RMT strikes on January 3-4, and 6-7.
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