How to interprete this 寝坊していつもと違う

Question

The full sentence: 彼女と知り合えたのは、寝坊していつもと違う電車に乗ったおかげです。

My attempt at translation: "Concerning that I could get to know my girlfriend, it is thanks to that I got onto a different train when always oversleeping."

I got problems with the parts in bold/italic.

First, I'm confused by いつもと. Is it いつも+と or a short form of いつも通り　(= http://jisho.org/search/itsumoto) Since いつも is positioned strangely compared to what I usually encountered in my textbook so far, I would guess that it is the latter. In this case, I would find it easier to interprete the sentence:

a)"Concerning that I could get to know my girlfriend, it is thanks to that I, oversleeping as usual, got onto a different train."

or

b) "Concerning that I could get to know my girlfriend, it is thanks to that I, oversleeping, got onto a different train than usual."

In version b, the A と B は 違う construction (if I remember correctly) would be reflected. However, いつも通り meaning "as usual", I'm still skeptical about wether or not I can make such a modification from "as" to "than".

Answer 1

彼女と知り合えたのは、寝坊していつもと違う電車に乗ったおかげです。

• 寝坊して means 寝坊したので because I overslept
• いつもと違う means いつも乗る電車と違う different from the train I always take

彼女と知り合えたのは、寝坊していつもと違う電車に乗ったおかげです。= 彼女と知り合えたのは、いつも乗る電車と違う電車に乗ったおかげです。+ 寝坊したので

So my attempt is:

I got acquainted with her thanks to having taken a train which was different from what I had always taken because I overslept.

Answer 2

The key to understanding it is to split 寝坊して "I overslept and..." and いつもと違う電車 "a train I don't usually take".

Here's my (slightly loose) translation:

"I was lucky enough to get to know my girlfriend from a time I overslept and ended up on a train I don't usually take".