Alas, I’ve had need to go down to London this weekend.
And unlike a lot of people – I actually can’t stand the place. Far too busy, people rushing and rude (I lived in Essex – a county near London for 20 years – enough to put anyone off London) – but as a I need to build up my “other” Photographic portfolio’s, needs must.
Now there are 4 viable ways to get to London from Birmingham:
- The West Coast Main Line Fast Service Operated by Virgin Trains (~£45 Return, 1 hour 30 minutes)
- The West Coast Main Line Slow Service Operated by London Midland (~£20 Return, 2 hours 30 minutes)
- The Chiltern Main Line operated Chiltern Railways (£25 Return, 1 hour 30 to 2 hours)
- And National Express/MegaBus (2 hours 40 or so to Victoria. Price and sanity varies)
As most of my regular readers know I have long ago abandoned the West Coast Main Line (except in dire emergencies.. or if I can find one of those elusive cheap fares) on the grounds of cost. So I’m aboard a Chiltern Service to London Marylebone.
Now as it’s a weekend, the service is in it’s older regional mode – meaning that there are no 1 hour 30 minute services London, but back to 1 hour 40 minute service. That’s not too bad.
Alas, it seems at 9am in the morning, it seems that Birmingham, Warwick, Leamington Spa, Banbury and Bicster North seemed to wake up at once, and cram a 4 car train solid.
Now it could be down to the fact that the Chiltern service is good value (and offers free WiFi aboard) that people are cramming the service to London. It could also be the fact that people don’t like to get out of bed early for a train.
Put it like this – I haven’t seen a service crammed like this except at peak time. Although further reading indicates that it was £10 fare weekend.
I did a bit of Tweeting… and to my surprise Chilterns Railways responded before I was off the train. Certainly if they’re running these sort of services with this promo… a longer train would not had hurt at all.
But even that – it’s still a more pleasant experience that travelling on the West Coast Main Line. With free WiFi, comfortable seats and not feeling “sardined” as you can do on the Virgin service, Chiltern remains the best viable option to London.
Except when there’s engineering possession starting at 22:00, and you’re on a train racing to get past the possession.
That of course is another story
