Train Pain

Ah, the joys of a journey on a train! Zipping through the countryside, sipping on a lovely cup of coffee, whilst children point excitedly out of the widow and a friendly ticket inspector smiles as you hand him your... *Screeeeep! (Sound of needle across vinyl)* Hang on... What the hell is THIS?!

I went to Edinburgh recently, via Megabus. On a train. (There’s a whole story in that really, isn’t there, but we’ll save that for another time.)

Edinburgh is lovely, but just about everything about train journeys isn’t nowadays.  On arrival at the station, we found that they wanted £8 for us to park for the day? £8?! I only wanted to leave my car there for a bit, not take the tarmac home! To complicate things further, the machine didn’t take any form of credit card, so you needed cash. I always have at least £50 worth of loose change on me, but on this occasion I wasn’t wearing my trousers with the reinforced pockets. £8? In change? I’m not a ruddy fruit machine!
 

One panicked dash to get change later, and we’re ready to roll. The train isn’t though – it’s been delayed. Probably another train on the line or something, or perhaps some passengers wanted to get on somewhere.

Our transport of delight was one of those Virgin bendylean-o things, which really do my head in. I keep looking out of the window (when I can see through the dirt, natch) and wondering why anyone would put a football pitch on a hill, or how those cows manage to keep upright without falling over. And guess what? The plug socket didn’t work. Cunningly, someone at Virgin HQ must keep a beady eye on twitter, as they spotted my tweet grumbling about it, and replied to say I should see the train manager, as they might be able to sort it out. Someone manages the train? You wouldn’t guess.

I shudder to think what the hapless twitter person has to put up with. Search for “Virgin”? I’m pretty sure they must get a whole lot of stuff unrelated to trains. Although, if you’re big into trains, then maybe...?
 

The coffee is clearly made of some new type of bean plucked from the event horizon of a black hole. Even after two milk ‘stix’ (Warning: May contain dairy products, but probably not) it still appeared to be as dark as before I’d wrested the squirty tube thingy open, and managed to get some of the ‘milk’  in the cup. With the rest on my trousers.

And here’s another thing – we’ve put a man on the moon, figured out what DNA is all about, and  made songs as brilliant as ELO’s” Mr Blue Sky”, and yet out trains still smell of poo.
As for those auto-detect soap/water/slightly-warmish-air sink thingies, what were they thinking? If I want a slightly damp and faintly warm arm, I’ll hold someone’s baby.

And then there’s the very worst horror of all – other passengers. Once upon a time, we grumbled about people with their mp3 player headphones so loud you could hear it not just in that carriage, but on passing trains too.

Well, it’s worse than that now. It seems to have become socially acceptable to watch stuff on laptops without bothering with headphones. Would everyone like to hear last night’s Coronation Street? No? Unlucky – you’re going to.
 

Plus the endless, mindless, feckless telephone conversations of your fellow travellers:  “Alright? Yeah. I’m on the train. Dunno. Yeah. Laters. Alright. Yeah. Respeck, man. Yeah.” Why didn’t you just shout that at your friend instead of phoning him? Oh, hang on. You DID.

Anyone want to enjoy the extra pongy snack, shrieking children, drunks, people with their feet on the seats, swearing, or half a dozen other irritations foisted upon you? You don’t? Ha! Bad luck, matey. It’s all part of the deal.
 

Right then. When does this train leave the station...?
 

(Thank you to all the really rather smashing people who took the time to look at my posts, thus getting me through to the last 10. You’re ever so nice, whatever the others say about you.)