Tag: trains

#oneaday Day 425: Train crazy

For this month's trip down to the office, as I alluded to yesterday, I decided to take the train instead of driving. This is a somewhat more pricy option, but it takes a similar amount of time in total and means I don't have to drive on the M25. I do, however, have to get from London Waterloo to London King's Cross via the Underground, which is fine on the way there but a tad busy on the way back.

For the most part, though, I think it was a successful experiment. I enjoyed being able to just zone out for the longer portions of my journey (particularly the 90 minute train ride from Southampton to Waterloo) and I actually got a lot of reading done; I've been ploughing through Jane Eyre for a while, and I think I made more progress through it on this trip than I have in the last month of casually reading a chapter before falling asleep of an evening.

I've always liked travelling by train. I think part of this stems from some trips I took with my parents as a child. I have oddly vivid memories of slamming manual train doors at Royston station — this was the days before pretty much all passenger trains had automatic sliding doors like they do now — and I also recall my excitement at the prospect of getting "the Whizzer" (the then new-ish Intercity 125 high-speed train) for a trip to York to, among other things, visit the railways museum. (Apparently I enjoyed riding the Whizzer so much that upon arriving at York, I immediately wanted to ride it all the way home again.)

I also have fond memories of occasionally having the opportunity to get various types of train set out when I was a kid. I had a Brio wooden train set that I enjoyed making creative layouts with — my favourite was the time I made a fully functional rollercoaster using the fence posts from the "farmhouse" scenery I had as track supports — and if I'd been really good and asked my Dad nicely enough, we could get the Hornby train set out of the loft and have a play with that.

We had enough track for that to build a reasonably complex layout on the dining table, a big station building that looked a bit like King's Cross circa 1985 (albeit without the hookers and drug dealers) and several trains, including a little green steam engine I called Percy (after the Thomas the Tank Engine character) and a scale model of the famous Flying Scotsman. I recall the Flying Scotsman actually being rather difficult to drive, because it was a big old beast that actually needed to slow down for corners. Percy, meanwhile, could zip around with relative impunity.

I've had a little go at some train simulator games, most notably Dovetail Games' Train Sim World series. I enjoyed the little I've played, but I'm always a bit conscious when playing one of those that there is a lot of sitting around not doing very much when riding the longer routes. Yes, this is authentic to the real thing — and is a criticism one can level at other simulators such as Microsoft Flight Simulator — but it always makes me wonder if I perhaps should be doing something else with my time. This is a mindset I should probably train (no pun intended) myself out of, because if you enjoy yourself and got something out of the experience — which I definitely have in past jaunts in Train Sim World — then it doesn't really matter how "efficiently" you spent your time.

In fact, yeah, I convinced myself. I should reinstall Train Sim World and spend some more time with it. Probably not tonight though. All that train travelling is, it turns out, surprisingly tiring!

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#oneaday, Day 180: Exhausted

This is going to be a brief one, and for that I apologise. It's been a very, very, very long day.

Had my interview today. Journey to Newbury was absolutely fine with no hiccups. The interview went well, the people were very pleasant and they very much enjoyed my presentation which featured a selection of stick-Pete pictures to liven up the slides, one of which you can see in the corner. I'm still not convinced about the job itself, though I felt quite positive about the interview.

The thing that switches me off a bit is that it would involve relocating and a lot of travel. Right now, I really don't have the finances to be able to fund that sort of thing. It suggests to me that it is something I could maybe do in the future, but it's not the right time to do it now. In the meantime, I have another job interview the Wednesday after next that will allow me to move back home for a bit, raise a bit of money and get myself sorted in preparation for whatever awesomeness is hopefully around the corner.

So that's almost kind of sort of decided, then. As much as it pains me to leave Southampton, the overwhelming response from a lot of people to my question the other day was that making a new start is easier if you make a physical move as well. And okay, going back home isn't exactly a completely fresh start. But it's something to build on, and it's a change. And change is good, apparently.

What wasn't so good today was the journey back. As I left the building where the interview was taking place, it started to rain. That stupid kind of rain where it's still sunny but you get soaked at the same time. Then it stopped. Then it started again.

I hid in the forecourt of a BP garage until it passed and looked at Google Maps to find my way back to the train station. Turned out the train station was actually very close to where I was, but on the other side of some kind of waterway. And it didn't look like there were any ways across.

Fortunately, there was a footbridge that wasn't marked on the map. Said waterway turned out to be a canal, which meant there was a pathway all along the side of it… and no way to get out to the station which was tantalisingly out of reach. I ended up walking about a mile to reach somewhere that was probably less than 200 yards away. Oh well.

Then I got the train back. The journey involved a change of trains at Reading. Changing trains is always stressful because there's always that worry that you'll miss your connection. In this case, it turned out to be true, but it wasn't my fault. The timetables on the station at Reading bore absolutely no resemblance to the trains that were actually coming and going. I ended up stuck in Reading station for nearly two hours, lack of sleep rapidly catching up with me until I did doze off on a bench like a well-dressed vagrant only to be shaken awake by another besuited man asking me if I needed to get on the Oxford train that was about to leave.

"No," I said groggily. "Thank you." Then I closed my eyes again.

When the train I did need eventually arrived, I decided to get into the "quiet" carriage where theoretically mobile phones and stereos are banned. However, what was not banned was the screechy Brummie hen party in there who were flirting noisily with all and sundry and getting incredibly drunk. I just wanted to sleep. Noisy, screechy drunk women are bad enough. Throw in a Brummie accent and… well, you can imagine.

When I did eventually get back to Southampton I was in full-on zombie mode. I shambled my way back to my flat, collapsed into bed for an hour or two and then set about the day's business of writing.

And now here I am. At 3.30am. Tired. But it's Saturday tomorrow. And I intend on sleeping until lunchtime. So there.