Train travel isn’t what it was. It could be an age thing, where everything that happened in The Old Days seemed to be much better than it is today, but having been to York and back with three different train operators AKA parasitical businesses charging the earth to take us from A to B, it was far less fun than it used to be. One thing is for sure: it’s bloody expensive.
Don’t ask me how or why, but my outbound ticket took me via London and the London Underground to York. I guess that the App on my telephone calculated this to be cheaper and, to be honest, I welcomed the opportunity to travel on a new-ish electric train for at least part of the journey. I managed to get a nice comfy seat on what was a busy train from Bristol Parkway to London Paddington and it was pretty good. We swished near silently and effortlessly through the flat English countryside for an on-time arrival, but the train was the only near silent thing about the ride.
The London line is relatively upmarket, not least because of the pricing regime. Despite my Old Farts Railcard, I almost had to sell a kidney to afford a ticket and found myself in a carriage packed with people bellowing into their mobile phones. “I’M ON THE TRAIN.” “CAN YOU HEAR ME, WE’VE BEEN THROUGH A TUNNEL. HELLO?” and all manner of business instructions. “MAKE SURE THIS REMAINS IN-HOUSE. THIS IS A MULTIMILLION POUND PROJECT.” I am never entirely convinced there is anyone on the line, such is the performative nature of certain kinds of calls. One woman a few seats ago prattled away in Dutch on her phone from Bristol Parkway, and maybe before, right until we pulled in to Paddington. My grasp of the Dutch language isn’t what it was since I was a child where for a few years it became my first language, but boosted by my autumn visit to Rotterdam I could tell this was not a business call. I put my music on and listened to King Creosote’s new album.
If my trip aboard GWR’s Hitachi electrics represented middle class semi-luxurious travel, I was brought crashing back down to earth in the laughably named Grand Central Trains Class 180 diesel hydraulic set from Kings Cross to York.
I hadn’t been to Kings Cross for decades and I walked past platform after platform of state-of-the-art electric units, until I found my train. Why, I wondered, was the company operating a diesel hydraulic train under the wires all the way to York? Answer: because much of the line passing through Hartlepool and eventually Sunderland is not electrified, so the company operates miserable cattle-class rolling stock for the poor bloody passengers. My carriage, right at the back, was like the noisiest sauna you had ever been in. Absolutely rammed with standing passengers everywhere, it was properly third world. It was so difficult for people to walk their dogs up and down the carriages (I am not making this up). Next to me, two middle aged women drank Kopparberg ‘cider’ from paper cups, using straws and most people had brought a packed lunch. When I visited the apology of a buffet car, I found out why. The worst coffee I had ever tasted, accompanied by what was supposedly a Ploughman’s sandwich, with plastic replacing cheese, or that’s what it tasted like.
Perspiring furiously, I tried to read my book and/or listen to my music, but it was near impossible. The train rocked furiously throughout the trip and I am afraid to say I simply wished my life away, all but praying for the trip to end. Quite frankly, the owners of Grand Central Trains should hang their heads in shame at running a service like this, with rolling stock that should have been sent to the scrapyard pretty well as soon as it rolled off the production line. I arrived at York desperately thirsty, having sweated out half my body weight, my T shirt all but stuck to me. Hell will freeze over before I use one of these trains again.
The return journey from York to Bristol was at least direct, albeit over three and a half hours of directness, but any relief at finding that was offset by the knowledge that this part of the journey would be undertaken on the dismal Cross Country Voyager, a diesel electric set marginally less uncomfortable than the Class 180, but still pretty desperate.
This is not the most glamorous journey, until you get past Birmingham. Passing Leeds’ concrete jungle, through gloomy post industrial Sheffield and Chesterfield’s crooked spire, there are occasional glimpses of England’s green and pleasant land before we arrive underground in Birmingham. Then, the journey brightens up considerably as the skyline opens up.
In Birmingham, we were joined by a very drunken young man carrying a box of … oh dear … Kopparberg, again. He was wearing short white shorts and a small jacket – oh and he had severe halitosis. He explained how he was once on Manchester United’s books and gushed about how lovely Victoria Beckham was. For reasons I won’t go into, I suspect he had dreamed this Man Ure experience and my main priorities were to get off the train the second we arrived in Bristol and to avoid his kind offer of a can of Kopparberg. I felt very, very sorry for him.
This is a problem of modern rail travel. Cross Country provided only a five coach train which utilised every seat and, for that matter, every corridor. It’s a noisy train and it’s way too hot. The toilets were disgusting, but then they so often are on our 21st century railways.
There was a jolly hostess from the National Express serving refreshments, but not sandwiches which most people seemed to want. I had already consumed a hearty brunch in York, in anticipation of Cross Country’s meagre offerings, so it was not too bad for me. For everyone else, chocolates and crisps were the nearest things to haute cuisine.
When I was in the Netherlands, the trains were super-smooth, comfortable, regular, reliable and affordable. No complicated fare system and no need to book three months ahead. For a country that gave the world railways, it was startling to find how far we had fallen back. Only the GWR section of the trip was acceptable, even though it was disgracefully overpriced.
People used to take the piss out of the old nationalised British Rail, sometimes with good reason. The rolling stock was not always the best, catering wasn’t the best either, although you usually had a buffet car, but you always had the impression it was public transport, run for us and not the benefit of private shareholders. I’m sure it was much cheaper and the last train from anywhere usually meant that you could catch a gig and still get home the same night. Nowadays, you have to set off home pretty well as soon as you arrive in a place.
I paid an arm and a leg, and definitely a kidney, to travel Oop North and back and all I got was stress and lower back pain, which lingers on today. And a lighter bank account.
The fact that these trains were all packed shows the demand for trains is still great. And doubtless the shareholders are rubbing their hands together at the millions they are making from those of us in cattle class. I used to love rail travel and when I am abroad I still do. In England, frankly it’s shit and I’d rather drive. A train fanatic who is fed up with trains. But believe me, these journeys weren’t enjoyable. I’d be amazed if anyone else enjoyed them either.
