A transport of delight

I was talking about my preferred mode of travel during the lunch break of a course I was delivering last week. It's come up a number of times in recent months, maybe because of the inclement weather. I travel by public transport. 

Many years ago, when I was the environmental management representative for a company implementing ISO 14001 we had an environmental consultant visit us to do a legal compliance audit. I asked him for his car registration to let reception know because we always played car park Tetris - double parking was necessary. 'I came by train,' he said and I vividly remember thinking, how very odd! I am now doing that odd thing myself. I think it is a function of being aware of all the environmental issues. As a consultant I spend an appreciable amount of time keeping up with environmental news and researching environmental impacts. Transport is one of our big ones. Not only does it emit about a quarter of the UK's greenhouse gases, the congestion and pollution caused is choking our cities and making them unpleasant places to be. We cart around large quantities of steel, plastic, glass and polluting liquids to get us from one car park to another and during some parts of our commute we move so slowly and intermittently that we are almost parked then. On Tuesday morning I walked towards work in Sheffield. I stopped to chat briefly to an acquaintance at Hunter's Bar roundabout and was overtaken (very slowly) by a huge Co-op delivery lorry. After completing my conversation I headed up Brocco Bank. I'm not a power walker, in fact my preferred speed is the gentle stroll, but on reaching the top of the hill I had to hang around for a couple of minutes for the lorry to appear in my photo. It's not very effective to travel by powered transport in Sheffield at rush hour.

So, yes, but public transport. Isn't that a bit horrid? I haven't found it to be horrid at all. It's generally very relaxing as long as you reserve a seat when travelling on the more popular trains, and none of the buses I've caught have required me to stand. What it does mean, generally, is that I have to set off earlier and arrive home later than I would by car, although by no means always. The journeys usually take longer but that time can be used. I dislike driving to a venue to present training because it means I have to review the slides the day before rather than on the journey. Similarly, when I have performed an audit I will get most of the report written up on the train on the way home. The time is not wasted as it is when driving; listening to drivel on the radio. If I don't want to work I can read, knit, or just look out of the window. The train journey from Sheffield to Manchester through the Pennines is lovely in the summer and preferable to the impatient idiots overtaking on the Snake Pass at any time of year. The journey to Edinburgh or Glasgow along the East Coast line is also lovely with stunning views at Durham, Alnmouth and Berwick and along the coast up to Eyemouth. I love train travel everywhere but around London, where I tolerate it because the alternative is so much worse. I've had some fascinating conversations (except around London) and when I'm feeling anti-social I plug in my i-Pod.
In order to make sure I get a reserved seat I book my train travel on the internet. I use the East Coast website because it doesn't charge you for using a credit card or for picking the ticket up at the station. And because I'm used to it. Other train companies and the Trainline sell tickets for all journeys. I book as far in advance as I can and doing this means not only can I get a seat but if I can be sure of my travel times I can usually get cheap tickets. The Moneysaving Expert has useful tips on this here. I also keep a lookout for offers. East Coast sent me one around Christmas which had a single to anywhere on their network for £8. I promptly booked two weekends in Scotland. The travel for each weekend cost £16. You certainly couldn't drive for that.

Yes, but if you're not going to a city centre a train is no good you say. I must admit that the integrated transport system that the various governments have said we will have anytime now still doesn't seem to be in place but in the last four years there's only been a couple of places I haven't been able to get to by public transport, both in Yorkshire. Apparently it used to be possible to get to Heckmondwike but the service was discontinued. It's possible to get to the top of the M606 in Bradford but it takes hours. When I drove, though, it took going on for three hours. About the time it would have taken by train and bus. The M1/M62/M606 were pretending to be carparks on the day I went.

It is a good point though. I often need a connection from the station to my final destination. I use two methods here. One is the TrainTaxi website. This lists all the train stations in the UK and the local taxi companies serving that station. Obviously if you are arriving at a large(ish) station like Sheffield you can expect black cabs and the site notes this. For smaller stations it is prudent to call the day before. My only problem with taxis has been because I haven't kept an eye on the calendar and neglected to get in with an early booking on the two days of travel during Eid. Not a mistake I will make again! The wonderful A.B.Cars still got me from Garforth station to the Holiday Inn in time for my presentation and amazingly cheaply and then brought me back the purse I'd dropped in the cab. I never used to use taxis. I thought them an extravagance, but the cost of a taxi on top of the train fare has only once been comparable to the mileage and is often much less, and I pass these savings on to the client.

If money is tight, as it has been these last couple of years, you might still decide to avoid the cost of a taxi. I did this recently on a trip to Tanfield Lea in County Durham. I looked up its location on Googlemaps and realised it was about equidistant from Durham and Newcastle, around 14miles. That looked like an expensive couple of trips in a taxi so I looked on Transport Direct. It turned out that there was a bus that took me to within a couple of hundred yards of my destination and though it took 3/4 of an hour longer the entire journey was pleasant. Not so much going back. Someone threw themselves in front of the train just outside Sheffield. We were waiting an hour whilst the emergency services dealt with it and probably the train driver dealt with the emotional problems he/she must have felt. At least, though, we were warm, in a lighted carriage and could go to the loo. After quarter of an hour there was also complementary hot drinks and those going past Sheffield got sandwiches too. Very much more comfortable than the hours I've spent on various occasions sitting on motorways waiting for debris to be cleared.

The only advantage I see to driving to places for work is that you can take lots of stuff. Indeed, when I had a car I had to occasionally empty out the accumulated stuff and take it back into the office. The ecologists couldn't head off with their newt traps on public transport but with a laptop & a bag of paper I can and I feel that should, not just because of my environmental principles but because it makes my life better.

First day of the Fringe (with kids)

We travelled up to Motherwell on Thursday evening. Sally and I met Jack at Sheffield station (he having travelled up from Oxford) and took the train up. Callum, my sister's son,  joined us at Leeds and we settled in for a fairly dull trip, sat at a table for four. I got out the jacket I am knitting and sewed up the raglan sleeve seams then picked up the stitches around the neck to knit the collar. All was relatively quiet until Darlington when the boys got on and sat at the table across the aisle from us. The problem with knitting on a train, apart from making me look like a granny according to Ian, is that people talk to you. What are you knitting? How long have you been making that? And so on. The boys were three men, Gaz, Gary and Dave, going up to Edinburgh for a weekend of male bonding. Apparently they've been doing this in various cities since they were 30ish. They started with a trip to Blackpool. After that the only way was up. They're in their forties now and still doing this once a year. This year they were going to join the rest of their party of eight in Edinburgh. 
It's amazingly expensive for an apartment in Edinburgh, they complained. 
That'll be because of the Fringe. 
The what? 
You don't know about the Fringe?
No.
So the fact that huge numbers of performers, students and audiences pack into Edinburgh for the month of August had passed them by. As Jack commented, in a couple of weeks they could probably have got the same apartment for half the cost. Never mind. They were halfway through a hefty number of cans of lager and they didn't care. They'd each got £200 for the weekend, they said, £20 for food and the rest for booze. Each of them teased and was teased about their wives and kids and each, sooner or later, wandered off to tell their wife they loved her and to say 'night night' to their kids. They entertained us all the way up to Haymarket where we kicked them off the train. Their bags were much lighter and they left a stack of empty cans, despite a regular search for a bin to put their rubbish in.


So, on Friday, an early lunch at Equi's then Ian drove us over to Edinburgh. I'd booked an additional show, Out of the Blue, on Alex's recommendation so we had four shows. The first thing we did was book another show for Saturday (an Oompah band at the GRV) then we parked up and made our way through a lovely little public garden to the C Plaza where we had a coffee and waited for our show.


I love a cappella music. Much as I like other types of music, the human voice, particularly in harmony, is what moves me. Alex is always recommending a cappella shows, and flamenco and generally culture sort of stuff, but Ian cleaves to comedy passionately, stubbornly. Never mind, I'd got him a ticket and he was prepared to give it a go. The show was put on by Oxford undergraduates, all male and with lovely voices. The choreography was amusing and energetic although, to be honest, they could have stood perfectly still for me and allowed me to concentrate on the music. They started with 'Don't You Want Me Baby' and bounced through a familiar songbook to finish with an encore of Pokerface. Callum identified it. Good job we had someone along who has some idea of the Zeitgeist. Ian had had to leave to save the car from predatory traffic wardens or I'm sure he'd have known Pokerface too. 


My favourite arrangement was Billy Joel's Lullaby. They didn't allow themselves to be distracted by the traditional mobile phone ring in the quietest section. They're good! Later we wondered how you fall into this sort of thing. We guess they were all choir boys in a previous life. That would explain the sometimes over pure tones and unconvincing sensuality in the dances to the 'raunchy' songs. On the way out I bought a CD. It's lovely but a cappella loses something in electronic format. They're just songs; the wonder of the performance is lost.


We dashed from there to Rainer Hersch being Victor Borge. I very much like Rainer and I have fond memories of Victor Borge. The story of his life was interesting and engaging and I think that these snippets of classical music are ideal for me. I love them when surrounded by anecdotes but I don't generally have the concentration or appreciation for an entire piece. 


After Rainer we split up. Callum wanted to see Rhod Gilbert but Ian, Sally and I had seen his show, 'The Cat that Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst', at Nottingham Playhouse relatively recently so we sent him and Jack to see Rhod and we headed over to the Underbelly to see Susan Calman.  (The picture at the top of this piece is Sally, already exhausted by the culture, waiting in the Underbelly bar for the show.) We first saw Susan a couple of years ago when she seemed promising. Since then she has appeared on the News Quiz and was sufficiently amusing that we thought we'd have another look. She's much improved, even in the dank warmth of the Underbelly.  Sally loved the show, laughing all the way through. I like Scottish women comedians, especially those from Glasgow. Susan used to be a lawyer but gave up the glamour and money for a dank cavern in the Underbelly and a life of semi-poverty. Good! I'm glad she's turned from the dark side. 


In the same way, Mickey Flanagan has recently come to our attention through Radio 4. Having moved up from the East End of London through a social science degree into teaching he has also turned away from a career of horror into comedy. Susan is very short and Glaswegian, Mickey is tall and cockney. It seems like a theme. The stories were very funny. I loved his definition of doing fuck all and his assertion that the 'Chicken Children' of today have completely lost the art. They may be wasting time but they have lost the ability for complete indolence. This was a show very much based in his own life and experience, a man who has made the transition from working class to rather smart middle class, marrying a long suffering multitasking woman who perfectly complements his persona of idleness. This was a splendid finish to the day. Ian complained that he'd heard most of the material on the radio show. Luckily I'd been too lazy to iPlayer it so it was suitably fresh and funny for me.