For a long time, leaves on the line was the best excuse rail bosses could come up with.
But now it's emerged that passengers have had to confront a new impediment: a signalman getting stuck in the toilet.
Travellers found themselves inconvenienced after contact was lost with the signal box at Henwick in Worcester, on the Hereford main line.
Trains cannot continue on to the city's Shrub Hill station without receiving a green light at Henwick, sited on a level crossing.
The driver of the 15.13 Hereford to London service, having heard nothing, got out of his train and walked to the signal box to see what the problem was.
It was then discovered the signalman was stuck in the Victorian building's outside toilet.
A Network Rail spokesman apologised for any delays caused to passenger by the unusual episode on Wednesday February 6.
He said: "Much of the railway is still controlled from Victorian signal boxes, which often have outside loos.
"Our plans to modernise the railway will see control moved to state-of-the-art regional control centres, where unfortunate incidents such as this simply wouldn't be an issue.
"We apologise to anyone whose journey was delayed or disrupted as a result."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article