Ho hum. This time I approached train fares with a view to simply confirming that it would probably be quite pricey to use a train to get to London next week. But while I was looking at the standard prices, I checked out the First Class prices, too.
The First Class prices seem to be out of the realm of "pricey" and well into the region of "mindblowingly stupid". Who pays £233.50 to get to London and back (about a hundred miles) on a Friday night? On a train? Is there actually anyone, or are these fares some strange artefact of the booking/pricing system?
Surely for that money, you'd hire a limousine instead, or just buy a car, and therefore either be free of parking problems or be able to change your return plans easily.
I might suggest this as a Top Gear challenge, actually. How ostentatiously can you get from Bristol to London and back on a budget of £233.50, given a week to make your plans?
Working while you travel is a fair point, although I'd rather save a couple of hundred quid and content myself with listening to an audiobook -- or reading on the coach, maybe. I've just worked out I can get to London and back on the coach _and_ stay overnight in a London hotel for less money than the standard-class train fare would cost me.
My boss will happily* get up at 5 for a 7am train to London, returning for an afternoon lecture, taking a variety of reading with her. I get the task of printing papers out 2/side and double-sided (remembering to put fresh paper, rather than reused in the printer) so she doesn't have too much to carry.
*Okay, maybe not happily. But it's her choice, she doesn't try to rearrange meetings or teaching.
Mind you, first class is generally quieter (the last half of my few years of commuting from here to Swindon was done in first class, mostly because I got fed up with not having a seat on the way home) and I guess a lot of the secret is just practice, and I've never had to work on a train on a regular basis.
Apparently he uses it to work, which I kinda guess he does.
Edited at 2008-01-06 12:14 am (UTC)