I have just spent a week in Nottingham doing the Summer School for M203 ( Open University Pure Maths Course) which was quite a good laugh. I decided since I new the dates that I would book the tickets quite a bit in advance so that I could get them cheaper. I did consider using the car but I trust Midland Mainline so I might as well do a bit for the environment and traffic congestion and use the train, what a mistake that turned out to be.
The train was due to leave at 10:01 Saturday morning. On arrival at Luton station 20 mins early I am then told that there is no such train, it doesn’t exist, there is no train at 10:01. I showed the bloke my ticket and lo and behold I am meant to be on the 10:01. This was not a mistake on my part, they had changed the timetable and my train would now be leaving at 10:50. BOLLOCKS, thats a lot of extra time I could have spent in bed.
Anyway, I got on the train and things were looking good until Kettering which is where the train decided to break down. So off we went to another platform where I could catch a train that would mean changing at Leicester. I don’t like changing so I waited for a direct train that came 15 minutes later and caught it instead. Arriving more than two hours later than I thought I was a bit pissed off to say the least.
Return Journey.
Well, I finished earlier than I expected on the course so I decided to hell with it I am not waiting a further two hours at the station just to catch a train that said suggested service on the ticket. This was my mistake. I seen suggested service on the train that runs from Nottingham to Leicester but I had a reservation on the train from Leicester to Luton. I jumped on the train that was fast to Kings Cross and decided to change there and come back up to Luton since that would get me in a lot quicker than the other way. On ticket inspection I got whacked with a bill for £27 because I was being bumped up by £7.50 to get to Luton for some reason and I had to pay £19.20 to get a return from Luton to Kings Cross and back again. FSCK IT
The bastards make me late by two hours and charged me £27 quid for the pleasure of recovering one hour. Using the train is a sure fire way to get stressed out over a simple journey of just over 100 miles.
100 miles cost me £64. I can fly home to Ireland and back again for less than this. The government are constantly wittering on that we should all start using public transport, its quite obvious very few of them actually use it. I would also imagine that when they do they have everything arranged for them at both sides and its other peoples money they are spending. The whole things a bit of a farce.