Suzy, Drinker Of Coffee

Dundee to Royston – on a Friday

I got to Dundee Bus Station in time for the 0900 megabus to London. To my own surprise, we started the trip with Volvo/Plaxton Panther 54009 – one of the brand new single deck, 65 seat, 15m long ones – pulls up, blinded M11 London. Is this wise, given that it’s a Friday? Well, this was all irrelevant as we changed to Neoplan Skyliner 50150 (double deck, 91 seat coach) at Perth Broxden Park + Ride.

I called Caroline on the bus, just as the controller came on the coach and yelled almost parallel to the mouthpiece of the phone… and then a young child was crying, quite a bit, so we decided to stick to texts for that point. We got in and out of Glasgow on time, to head south at 1100.

I briefly checked my email several times using the new brick (mobile). I had received an email from Stuart Henry at Travel West Midlands/Travel Dundee re my letter of complaint on Service 14. To their credit, they are willing to have a meeting at work (noting when I will be in and not). Travel Dundee’s MD is currently on annual leave, but back soon. I will deal with that in more depth early next week.

When we got to Preston Bus Station (pre-redevelopment), a few sights taken from the window of the coach included a Solo headed for Blackpool! We were very lucky with roadworks and accidents, because of many miles of stationery traffic on the M6, and then the M60, but both the opposite way! We were due into Manchester at 1540/out 1545, and were a bit late on the way out due to traffic (in the main). Roadworks then started to hit us – the M1 was meant to be a problem. Bear in mind that we were “due” into London at 2015. A few passengers asked about a stop (the toilet was blocked) when we did a driver change at Watford Gap Services, so we stopped there from 1900-1915. I sent Caroline a text at the “35 miles to London” point, but of course, that is when it starts hitting worse with M1 extensions and widening.

I spotted my first London bus – an ALX400 (DLA I think) from Arriva, running off the 142 dead back to Garston (Watford) garage. Now I know that I have (almost) arrived. Soon after, we got to the legendary Staples Corner (junction of the north Circular, Edgware Road, and the M1). It is now home to Staples stationery store, amongst others. Having said that, it was not where the name came from – apparently there used to be a mattress factory here called Staples – I never knew that until last week! We finally got in well over one hour late. I made it out to the tube station, and had enough credit on my Oyster card to make it to Finsbury Park for the First Capital Connect train to Royston. (The previous franchisee, National Express owned WAGN, was informally known as “We Are Going No-where”).

Now, here is a simple figure to work out.

OPTION ONE
Victoria to Kings Cross, £1.50 single by Oyster (off-peak) x 2 = £3.00
Kings Cross to Royston, £24.50 Saver Return
TOTAL - £27.50

OPTION TWO
Victoria to Finsbury Park, £1.50 single by Oyster (off-peak) x 2 = £3.00
Finsbury Park to Royston, £20.50 Saver Return
TOTAL - £23.50

So, work out how the same length of journey can cost an extra four quid, for no additional saving – just a different stop to jump ship. Kings Cross to Finsbury Park is about the same on the Victoria Line as it is on the overground – the latter gets about seven minutes. I had to visit overground briefly to get tickets for this bit of the run, and the first three machines had issues – only the fourth and final one was working! The new Finsbury Park bus station (remember I’ve not been here for some time) has been tidied up quite a bit, from the one I used to remember from years gone by!

So, from Finsbury Park north, not quite the 2057 (fast) or even the 2111 (stopper) that I expected to get – in fact, not until the 2211 stopper an hour later! so I sent a text to Caroline to tell her… and got one back saying “I somehow knew you would not be here until 11 hunny. I’ll be at the station waiting for you”. This is nice… even more so as the train didn’t leave Finsbury Park until two and a half minutes late! The train was a nice electric thingy, but still in Network SouthEast livery (or so it looked like), and the sealing strips were hanging off the side of the wall. Lots of label sticking of new fleetnames, and even a nice poster about how things would improve under the new franchise with First. That sounds familiar… In any case, it was a quiet and smooth journey, and although it sounded like Ned-U-(Don’t)-Like at Hitchin, I was the only one in my carriage for the last few stops to Royston. The train was blinded (and announced) “Cambridge via Stevenage” until after we left there, and it became “all stations to Cambridge”. Anyway, we got in about six minutes late to Royston, and Caroline was there, waiting for me. We chatted for a bit, and then she worked on supper until about 0100 hours on Saturday morning. Appreciated, given that I’d been travelling for 14 hours…

Tomorrow is going to be more fun – a visit to the surgeon and back. The rest of the day is pretty much open. Wonder what might happen…?

Labels: caroline, london, subway, transition, transport

posted by Suzy Scott @ 23:33