themodelcommuter

OK, so maybe it was a bad idea to give a bus company (National Express) a train franchise (or two as they have)*. I agreed to go up and look after the parents house this weekend. No issues, small jaunt up to Norfolk that I do most weekends. Today I had a quick look at train times to see how long I could spend round my friends house before I had to leave. I’ll admit I was expecting engineering works and a slightly longer journey, but what I wasn’t expecting was for 3 hours of the journey to involve buses or waiting around for busses (or in one rare case a train). Not useful and I am not, at the last minute, trying to get out of heading up there as I really don’t want to spend my entire Sunday sat on public transport.

*For the benifit of those people who’ve been trolling on some of the other commuting blogs I read and pointing out small things like its Network Rail, not NXEA digging the track up… yes, I know, but it’s much more fun to blame a bus company for wanting to run more busses .

I arrived at the station Thursday to see what I thought was the 07:30 pulling into platform 3. Given getting a seat is hard enough if you’re first through the door let alone at the platform I gave it up for a bad job and headed to platform 4 for the 07:33. A few minutes later another intercity pulls in. This was not good. What I thought was the 07:30 was the delayed 07:15 and NXEA have a tendency of making sure the intercities get through at the expense of slower trains. Cue 20 minutes extra free on the train.

From there it went downhill. Two failed trains and an incident at Gidea Park gave another 20 minutes free on the train home and both trains yesterday were 10 minutes late for reasons I couldn’t even be bothered to unplug my headphones to hear. With the resuming of Engineering works this month I get 40 minutes free on a bus tomorrow and just to make sure I’m being really put upon they’ve slung someone in front of a train at Seven Kings today. My train isn’t even advertised, they’re cancelling others and they claim one will be here in 15 minutes, some 30 minutes late. I suspect they are lying. Not to worry. Soon it’ll be Monday and they can do something really spectacular to stuff up my day.

No, you do not put your wet brolly on my coat. Grrr!

The 06:59 (currently the 07:05 and getting later by the second) has been delayed by a failed freight train. This has been happening a lot recently. Do they not look after these things?

I’ve taken to eating dinner on the train home. It just means I get the couple of hours at home to do other things. Last night as I got up to get off the train the bloke opposite pointed put I had something on the front of my jacket. I thanked him and removed the offending bit of tuna mayo and got off the train. From the look of disgust on this blokes face you’d think it was bird crap.

So, the season direct ticket. Monthly season ticket between (in my case) Colchester and London Liverpool Street. Delivered to your door every month; shiny, durable plastic ticket; travel anywhere on the NXEA network on weekends and bank holidays for free; delay repay claims paid into your bank account; ticked paid for by direct debit. Cost: GBP 341/month.

Monthly rail card. Monthly season ticket between (in my case) Colchester and London Liverpool Street. Collected after queuing at the ticket office and buying it; normal paper ticket; no extra benefits; delay repay claims paid via post (and I think with vouchers so you can only use them to buy more rail tickets); paid for directly at the ticket office. Cost: More than the Season Direct.

OK, there is a limitation on the Season Direct in so far as it has to have Liverpool Street as one of the end points, it does take over a month to get set up and it does run from the 1st of each month but you’d still think a normal monthly would be cheaper. But then who am I to question the vagueries of train ticket prices?

It would seem Fridays are the day to get the 07:30. There were many seats today which means I shall be having a pleasent journey in for once.

I’ve been spotted a few times on my daily commute (and heading to and from London when I was between jobs) and it’s always amusing to hear what people say. “I saw you charging through Liverpool street station” was one comment, but my favorite was “You passed me, well, I say passed, nearly mowed me down…”

When navigating Liverpool Street at rush hour there is only one approach and it’s not timid. People are walking up and down the station to get from one end to the other, crossing it to get to the tube or generally milling about waiting to find out where their train is leaving from (or if it’s leaving at all). The resulting psndsmonium means there is no room for politeness, no hope for the timid and down right impossible to traverse without carving up at least one person. I generally put on my game face, play something agressive and loud on the iPod and weave through everyone at speed. I keep out of the way of others doing the same and generally only carve up those who are being timid or indecisive as I can’t work out where they’re going to be in the next 2 seconds. You’ll note the ‘nearly’ in relation to the mowing down accusation. Unlike most people I’m actually paying attention so when you wonder into my path I can avoid you and not mow you down. There’d be many collisions if I didn’t.

There is just something fundamentally wrong about paying £341/month to sit on the floor.

Well I guess I asked for it but I’m currently sat on the floor on the 07:30 as there are bigger all in the way of seats by the time it hits Colchester. Yes, I’ll be in work early today, buy I’ll also be cranky from a bad trip in. Think I’ll stick with the 07:33 slow train with seats. Gets me in on time and, most importantly, doesn’t make me cranky.