Train Journey...

This one came up with Trish and Cam the other night,,, think someone asked did I fly up or train,,, that was me off on one...





I arrive Piccadilly station, I normally go to counter to get ticket but queue was horrendous so I go ticket machine, I put in Manchester/Edinburgh open return,  machine gives me these options:-


Manchester Edinburgh via Carlisle direct 3h 15m £74.90...


Or 


Manchester Edinburgh via York one change 4h 5m £101.80...


So as usual when I do this trip it's the Manchester/Carlisle/Edinburgh option, so card in tickets out...


So off I head to the destination board to see train times, it ain't showing any trains to Edinburgh,,, so off to the info desk I head, guy says "there ain't no trains to Edinburgh today due to maintenance work, machine shouldn't have sold you the ticket, l could work out a route for you but it would take you hours to get there as most of journey would be on train replacement busses, best thing to do would be to go via York, I say ok, he then says "oh, that ticket ain't no good, you'll have to go to the ticket desk and change it, and it will cost you more"...

So after a long wait to get to the ticket counter I am relieved of a further £26.90 to go somewhere I have no wish to go to...

I get on train, there's an announcement, due to an incident involving a fatality at York the trains departure time will be delayed by approx half a hour,,, we eventually set off, train crawls to York...

I eventually get to Edinburgh some six hours later, a journey I was expecting to take three hours fifteen minutes,,, plus I had to pay extra for this pleasure...

I think this is wrong, if you plan to travel from A to B, but for some reason the train sets broken and you have to go via C, D and E to get there, places you have no wish to go to, why the hell should you be charged extra for the inconvenience...

And if that fatality at York turns out to be some eejit committing suicide I'll twat the fecker if I ever meet them...

Sounds like a lovely day out to me 

That's cos your an eejit... 

Guess you gotta return that way too then, otherwise you will not have valid ticket.........

That was another fight, says to girl at ticket desk does that mean I have to come back via York , she says no I will do it as an extra,,, so on train back ticket guy says you should be on York train,,, I just give him a look, he fecks off...

Thats what you should have done anyway on the first journey. As long as you have a ticket for more or less the right time they (inspectors) dont seem that bothered in my experience. In the past I have found buying a ticket for Norwich on Trainline always worked out much cheaper for some unknown reason and you just get off train 50 miles short of destination. For £101 pound I would wanna get as far as Tenerife and back ffs!

Yip, pricing don't make sence, my final destination was Inverkithing about twelve or so miles north west of Edinburgh, if I'd bought a Manchester to Inverkithing  return ticket it would have been £20 more, cost of single one way ticket Edinburgh to Inverkithing £5.50, cost of same day return £5.80, for some reason they don't do a 30 day open return ticket on that route or I'd have got one but didn't matter as my mate dropped me off in Edinburgh for return journey...

Same as you a year or so back when I was traveling south Aberdeen to Inverkithing it was cheaper to get an Edinburgh ticket and get off the train twelve miles short of where my ticket was for...

No problems like that on our wonderful trams or the new borders rail link 

Yip, no chance of over crowding given they go places where nobody wants to go...

Oh, and remember the disruption thought out Edinburgh when they ripped the streets apart to lay the tracks, well you've got that to look forward to again, them tracks don't last forever and need replacing every so often, a few years back Manchester city centre was torn apart for over two years while they replaced the tracks, not only were the tram services disrupted but road transport was also horrendus as roads were dug up all over the place,,, but seemingly it's the future...

Nah, bad spelling is the future 

Aww, is that all you can come back with...

Never could spell, embarrassed me at one point, but when I reached the point of having my own secretary I really didn't have the time to give a shit about it, that was what she was paid to fix out...

I was. Very impressed with the frequency of the buses in Edinburgh. Spoilt for choice really when going from Prince's Street to Leith

Edinburgh busses realy good, know a few guys who ran it at director level, totally against the the tram system they were,  but them so called green twats won the argument, one of them was forced to resign over the matter, everything he predicated about the project happend,,, a financial nightmare,,, teaches transport policy at a uni now, fraction of the wage he was on, but at least he had principals and was proven to be right despite the whitewash shite we are spoon fed about it being a success,,, bollocks........

An add on to the above, the tram system was allways going to be run by the Edinburgh bus company (LRT) so these guys had no other interest than the most efficient transport system tor Edinburgh, they knew it was not only a financial disaster waiting to happen but a totally useless addition to a perfectly good public transport infrastructure that worked...

Referring back to my first post,,, I wrote complaining about the whole fiasco, just got a reply, full refund £50.90 for the trip up to Edinburgh as I was legally entitled to that as the train was over a hour late, and as a good will gesture for the general cock up £50 worth of rail travel vouchers, so basically 100% refund,,, pays to be a grumpy old bas#ard sometimes...



Now I ain't got any rall journey's planned so them travel vouchers are for sale at the bargain price of £49.99...

Failing the sale of them I see a real ale train trip on the horizon...

REsult!

He came up to see me and his travel arrangements went tits up. I should have warned him about the Brodie "luck"...