I’m fed up to the back teeth of flying, having done it for protracted periods of time to travel between Glasgow and London over the last few years. Every week, for a period of 6 months, I’d be up at 5am, getting a Taxi out to Glasgow airport about half an hour later (only about 15 minutes away from the airport by car at the time), wizzing through with hand-luggage only and pre-checked in, getting on the plane, down to Gatwick, and in to the centre of London some 4 - 4.5 hours after leaving.
Red-eyes are horrible things though, and the time-delay is only good if everything runs on time. A slight delay and things get knocked for six, especially coming in to the London airports. Heathrow is a place of horror for me. It’s too big, too far from anywhere, expensive to get to, and not a pleasant place to be at the best of times, other than for the worlds best people-watching location. Flying out of airports is awful, and you soon learn the techniques for getting the best boarding time, minimising queuing, and unplugging yourself from any sort of stress. Getting stressed when travelling regularly is unproductive and silly. When things got delayed, I worked out what I’d do if things were cancelled.
Most recently, Virgin Trains west coast mainline has been my route of choice, and I’ll be doing that this coming Monday when I visit London. The tilting Pendolino trains may not get up to full speed for much of the trip, but they are what train travel is all about. Good facilities. Clean. Fast. And seemingly reliable too: Something that has markedly improved in the last five years or so.
Door-to-door, it’s more like 5.5 hours, but it’s an altogether more relaxing experience (especially with an iPod, a book, and a window seat to savour the views), and it’s much much greener. I’ve always had a soft-spot for train travel, and it’s good to see it’s comparable on price (especially if you’re booking quite late). £94.10p return, at peak times, counts as good value, and there are no connection times, or long hauls into town, at the other end to worry about as at the London airports.
As for the current travel restrictions, I’m getting very sceptical about all this. The Register has an interesting article that analyses the feasibility of creating the liquid explosives the media have got all excited about. There is a positive side to it all though in that it’s forcing a re-assessment of the amount of hand luggage, which had just got out of control, with larger and larger cases, plus laptop bags, getting allowed on. More reasons to hate Ryanair come out of it too - Their CEO Michael O’Leary is milking the media attention, presumably because their recent attempt to charge people to put luggage in the hold is unravelling their business model.
I’m sure the train down to London on Monday will be busier than normal. I’m probably not alone in figuring it’s altogether easier to take the train at the moment - and not have to worry about losing your laptop in the luggage system. But, for my money, sitting back on a train a few feet above ground, even at fast speeds, is much safer, environmentally friendly, enjoyable, and - hopefully - more reliable right now than anything else.
November 22nd, 2006 at 9:34 am
[...] I’ve previously written about my experiences with the west coast mainline, and that it was now my preferred way of travelling to London. It seems I’m not the only person who’s impressed with the new service, as the BBC has been covering it’s success (you need to read past the “upgrade warning” headline) - it’s ahead of it’s passenger growth targets, but may actually reach capacity within 10 years. [...]