Train Travel

If you're traveling by train from to anywhere, the man in seat 61 will give you the straight poop.

Train travel is a more rewarding, low-stress alternative to flying, which brings us closer to the countries we visit and reduces our contribution to climate change. It's time to rediscover the pleasure, romance & adventure of travel by train or ship. This site explains how to travel comfortably & affordably by train or ferry where you might think air was now the only option. For help with train travel, ask the Man in Seat 61!

I don't think that I am being controversial when I say that rail travel in the UK is often perceived as complex and expensive.
An in depth knowledge of the byzantine ticketing system is a helpful starting point for anyone wishing to undertake a railway journey.
Very often tickets are beset by all manner of terms and conditions which seem to have been imposed with the sole intention of catching out the unwary traveller.
This usually results in the full fare for the journey being imposed in addition to the fare already paid.

Bizarrely it is possible to pay less for a journey by 'split ticketing'.
As an illustration, let's say that you wish to travel from London-Kings Cross to Newcastle.
It might well be cheaper to buy a ticket from Kings Cross to York and another from York to Newcastle.
You stay on the train and probably have the same seat. It's perfectly within the terms and conditions and the only requirement is that the train is scheduled to stop at the intermediate station.

If faced with that journey I think I'd fly from either Luton or Heathrow.
The cost and time involved travelling to either of those airports probably wouldn't be much different to that of Kings Cross.
And there's no risk of having to stand for half the journey.

All well and good if your just considering point A to point B as quickly/efficiently as possible. But you're overlooking the adventure, intrigue, mystery, and romance of the trains.
What if Agatha Christie had been a flier? :lol:

xoxoxoBruce;1023846 wrote:

All well and good if your just considering point A to point B as quickly/efficiently as possible. But you're overlooking the adventure, intrigue, mystery, and romance of the trains.
What if Agatha Christie had been a flier? :lol:

There's more than enough mystery and intrigue in the timetable and ticketing system for anyone! :eek:

I think it was over £200 round-trip, London St Pancras to Derby, if booked in exactly the worst way (last minute, direct, at a window)?

(They told me I did it wrong, but when your employer is paying for it, and doesn't give you any instructions....)

Undertoad;1023854 wrote:

I think it was over £200 round-trip, London St Pancras to Derby, if booked in exactly the worst way (last minute, direct, at a window)?

(They told me I did it wrong, but when your employer is paying for it, and doesn't give you any instructions....)

'Dynamic pricing' at its best. Otherwise known as being held to ransom.


Fares rose 3.1% (in most cases) earlier this month.

UK rail fares will rise by 3.1% in January, the Rail Delivery Group has said.

New fares published on Friday will add hundreds of pounds to many commuters’ annual travel from 2 January 2019.

Fares rose at the start of this year by 3.4%, slightly below the 3.6% cap set for regulated fares.

Passenger groups had demanded a freeze after widespread disruption this year, particularly on Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) and Northern services, after the botched introduction of a new timetable in May.

Northern fares will rise by slightly more than the industry average, 3.2%. More disruption is expected on Northern trains on Saturday due to an RMT strike, although the company and union are now in talks to avert further planned industrial action.

GTR said its fares would rise at just below 3%, while C2C (2.6%) and Chiltern (2.8%) were implementing the lowest rises among those companies which had revealed their plans.

Britain’s rail fares have grown faster than wages, with real pay having fallen in the last decade.

Link

If you have the misfortune to be a daily commuter into London you really do pay through the nose.
It's a business model that would have made Al Capone blush.

I wouldn't travel (via any mode of transportation) in London if they paid me.

I think you would enjoy a canal boat ride.

Doubtful.

Gravdigr;1023857 wrote:

I wouldn't travel (via any mode of transportation) in London if they paid me.

Not even this one?

Heh, I started to say I've got one and don't travel there either.

:jig:

For many years, I dreamed of taking the American Orient Express Antebellum Tour. Expensive as shit, but the most amazing, high-luxe historical tour of everything between DC/New Orleans a body could hope for.

I'm so depressed to find out that the AOE went out of business in 2008. I used to get their trip catalogs every year in the mail, and pored over every page, word by word. I never really thought about why I no longer received the catalogs. Now I know why. For years, I hoped that someday I'd have enough money to take the tour, but W's 2008 wipe-out of the economy apparently killed the whole thing.

Fuck. :(

Of course, my experience on a train trip from Portland OR to Simi Valley CA was such a fucked-up thing (contracted pneumonia) that my enthusiasm for train travel is well dampened. But still . . .

I WANT TO RIDE THE AOE!!!!

Don't put off till tomorrow what you can't afford today.
Use your credit, go out on a limb, it's the American way.

Rails being rails, the Tube counts...

glatt;1023858 wrote:

I think you would enjoy a canal boat ride.

That's canal, not anal.

And you never know until you try, Digr

Are these London canal boat rides hosted in boats?

Then I'm doubtful.

Also, are these London canal boat rides in America?

Then I'm doubtful.

Will there be other people on these London canal boat rides?

Then I'm doubtful.

Will there be anyone besides me driving these London canal boat rides?

Then I'm doubtful.

Gravdigr;1023857 wrote:

I wouldn't travel (via any mode of transportation) in London if they paid me.

Carruthers;1023883 wrote:

Not even this one?

A few years ago Stephen Fry made a six episode TV series about his trip around the US in a London black cab.

In this video he stops at London, KY. Scene starts at the 17 min. mark.

[YOUTUBE]2cn8io3kplA[/YOUTUBE]

Is KY the Deep South?
At 19:22

Thank you Mr. Carruthers! I watched the whole episode!

By far, the best part was when he got to Miami.:lol2: I think his favorite part of Miami was the "You are now leaving Miami" sign.

I was aware of the show, as I like Stephen Fry. Might have to check out the other episodes.

Thanks again.

xoxoxoBruce;1024010 wrote:

Is KY the Deep South?
At 19:22

No, I guarantee they were thinking "Whut did he say?".

The only thing we're deep in, is horse shit and bourbon.

And weed. We grow some pretty damn good weed.

Gravdigr;1024012 wrote:

Thank you Mr. Carruthers! I watched the whole episode!

By far, the best part was when he got to Miami.:lol2: I think his favorite part of Miami was the "You are now leaving Miami" sign.

I was aware of the show, as I like Stephen Fry. Might have to check out the other episodes.

Thanks again.

Good to read that you enjoyed the video, Mr G!

Having watched it, it occurred to me that I might consider buying the DVDs if cheap enough.
On checking Amazon it told me that I had already bought the box set.
I'd completely forgotten and I have no idea where it is!

Carruthers;1024020 wrote:

On checking Amazon it told me that I had already bought the box set.
I'd completely forgotten and I have no idea where it is!

So that's why you went into that room. :lol:

Maybe you bought it as a gift for someone else?

Carruthers;1024020 wrote:

On checking Amazon it told me that I had already bought the box set.
I'd completely forgotten and I have no idea where it is!

Did you check the airing cupboard?

Clodfobble;1024088 wrote:

Maybe you bought it as a gift for someone else?

Found it! Third box down on the left. :)

The trouble is that I have a serious lack of shelf space so DVDs and books often have to be stored in boxes or cupboards that do not do them justice.
At present, apart from four bookcases and sundry other storage areas, I have four piles of books on the floor.

Books tend to suffer the most. I have a database which records 545 titles.
Like the Stephen Fry DVD I sometimes stumble across a title that interests me only to find that I have already bought it.
Sometimes the ensuing search fails to find it and I realise that it was probably donated to the local charity shop when I had a purge a year or two back and I didn't delete it from the database.
Rather sheepishly I have to admit that I have bought the title again.

I have promised myself that one day I shall have an oak panelled study with a large desk and several hundred feet of shelving!
Not to mention a softly ticking grandfather clock, a roaring fire and a Labrador snoozing by my side.

glatt;1024090 wrote:

Did you check the airing cupboard?

:):):)

Carruthers wrote:

I have a database which records 545 titles.

One of my first paid "jobs" was creating just such a database for a friend of my mom's when I was about 12. It was thousands of books, and the most important part was documenting which room/bookcase/shelf they were in. At the very end I was wandering around the house making sure I hadn't missed any random stashes of books, and I discovered a clothes hamper with about 50-100 softcore romance novels shoved inside. I decided to pretend I hadn't found it.

Amazon remembers. Google too and God knows who else.