A totally different type of people

[Ronnie the Raincoat]

On Virgin Trains, reserve a seat in the quiet carriage.  It's lovely and usually almost empty.  I had a lovely sleep on it from London to Glasgow.

As for Sir Nicholas, I'm not surprised by his comments.  He's an idiot with racist fuckhead for a wife.

[Kishi the Bad Lampshade]

I don't have too much of a problem with trains, often there are crumbs on the seats/floor which makes me go a bit queasy but it's not a real problem. I'd never really thought about first class carriages until recently, where I was on a massive train where half the seats were first class, and every single one of the others was reserved. You should at least be allowed to sit in a first class seat if it's empty and there's no other room on the train. But I didn't have the guts to do such a rebellious thing, so instead I sat in a reserved seat until we got to the station where the reservee was due to come on, then stood by the door for the remaining half-hour.

The one thing that really, really infuriates me is train prices though. From South Coast to anything besides London or a station in your own county you can be looking at hundreds - hundreds - of pounds, even knowing the right tricks often only brings the price down to a still-ridiculous level. And what if you don't know the right tricks? Plenty of people don't know/don't have time to shop around and try 300 different ticket combinations, and are paying the price of a small pony to get somewhere less than 200 miles away.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. It's completely nonsensical and I don't see how train companies can have the balls to do it. There's only one obvious solution - force them to give all regular train customers the small ponies they are OWED.

[hpmons]

You should at least be allowed to sit in a first class seat if it's empty and there's no other room on the train.

At least on Southern trains, I find that they generally allow anyone to sit in first class if the train is crowded.

The one thing that really, really infuriates me is train prices though. From South Coast to anything besides London or a station in your own county you can be looking at hundreds - hundreds - of pounds, even knowing the right tricks often only brings the price down to a still-ridiculous level. And what if you don't know the right tricks? Plenty of people don't know/don't have time to shop around and try 300 different ticket combinations, and are paying the price of a small pony to get somewhere less than 200 miles away.

With a railcard, I don't find the tickets *that* bad to be honest.  Still generally more than I'd like to pay- I think its £14 from Eastbourne to London return, buying on the day, which means £21 for normal people. Then its about £20 if its an open return, which I really don't understand, as you are still travelling the same distance... But to go somewhere further its really not that impossible to find a good deal. 

Several times I've looked a week in advance - sometimes even less - and found a single ticket from Brighton to Bristol for £5.90.  Generally as long as I look at about eight or nine days in advance, I can get a return for under £20.  That's THROUGH London, a total of around 4h journey each way, which is pretty good.  If I look less than a week it creeps up to around £25.
I don't remember how much it costs from Eastbourne to Wakefield (the only other far place Ive been to), but I think it was around £35, which I thought was a bit much, but after you lot mention the millions you have to spend I guess it's pretty good.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I use the Polar Express and have no complaints.