Ah, the romance of a British Train Journey

Last couple of days have seen be draw an interesting comparison of differing modes of transport, that has lead be to believe that anyone who suggests we should all return to public transport should be shot..... Read on dear reader....

Wednesday, up at the crack of sparrows, to drive some 60 miles to Hursley to visit IBM, Tomtom set up with directions, no problem, jumped into the car, got about halfway there and decided that I had left to early...! Stopped off at a delightful (clean) services just outside Winchester for a reasonably priced cup of coffee and a read of the morning paper.... Finished the Journey in style with the Radio on, Sunglasses on, and spot on time....

Now draw comparison to my Journey into London the following day.....

Up at the crack of sparrows again.... drive 12 miles to Slough train station, (could have gone on the Reading to Waterloo line but for some reason that Journey takes 1 hour 20 Minutes), park at the far end of the car park (not out of choice you understand!!) wander down to the ticket office and hand over by firstborn child for a return ticket to Moorgate and for parking (bear in mind this is Slough so paying for parking is like paying for a lottery ticket as to whether your car will be there when you get back!!).... Now from Slough there are various trains into Paddington the trick is to get the right one.... all bar the 07:47 stopped at every station on the way in, thus despite leaving later the 07:47 beats them all into Paddington (well obviously not the 06:30, or 06:50 !! but you get my point!!) now the problem here is that everyone who uses this train knows it..... So I get there early intended to fix my position on the platform until I am on the train..... after about 10 minutes, I figure I could have a coffee and a bun for breakfast, so a quick detour gets me to the coffee shop, I am forced to give up my second-born child here, (need to be carefully now as I am all out of children!!) for a bland cup of tea and a two day old roll!!! anyway it fills the gap, as have about 3 dozen people, into my gap on the platform..... Thus when the train arrives I am squeezed into the doorway (a little like toothpaste!) and spend the whole of the 35 minute journey to Paddington with my nose stuck into some blokes armpit and some ladies laptop bag jammed between my buttocks.... Thoughts run through your mind during journeys like this such as what happens if the train crashes.... well for me the operation to remove the Laptop bag would probably have taken weeks, and not just to get the smile of my face !!!

So Paddington arrives, and you think the journey is over, well no, because unlike the calm travel experienced the day before, the mainline train leaves me some 30 minutes away from where I need to be.... So I join the hordes of unwashed people (why do some many people stink of BO this early in the morning!!) in squeezing into the tube... (thoughts back to my comments on toothpaste !), Now this is where you learn another of Lives mysteries, that is that everyone else on the tube system at any given time will know exactly where they are going, and exactly which train they need.... I always fall into the other category. that of person standing staring at the board trying to decipher which platform, whilst 3 million people barge past all intent on squashing me like a fly.... So I get the right platform, but wrong train !! the train I get on goes for one station then terminates, leaving me to get the next one, which I could have got from the previous station..... but as I didn't I am now filled with the prospect of climbing on top of the residents of said tube and hanging from the roof bars trying to avoid the odour permeating from every body.....

Get to Moorgate some 2 hours after leaving home, feeling like I haven't washed for weeks, dressed in a suit taken directly from a dead homeless person (rather than the pressed suit I had left in that morning) dieing for a pee (well would YOU use the toilets on a train), and absolutely relishing the journey home......

So you see heres the problem with Public Transport...... the PUBLIC, give me by gas guzzling car anytime......