1 June 2003 23:12 [link]
screaming kids and no knee room: it must be gner
Travelling by train beats travelling by bus. But then I really don't like travelling by bus.
GNER takes me between London and Durham. It somehow seems to distil out the core unpleasantness of rail journeys, and present it as the essence of travel hell. I pay an excessive amount for the privilege of enduring their service.
I don't have enough knee room in their "airline" seats; a table is fine but they book those out quickly. It's not just that the seats are a bit cramped - the length of my thigh actually exceeds the distance from the seat back to the back of the seat in front. You can sit sideways, but you're either inconveniencing your neighbour or sticking your legs into the aisle, where a helpful GNER employee will run over them with a drinks trolley.
The trains are usually fairly full, so booking a seat is essential. Of course this may result in an unpleasant altercation with the current occupier of the seat, since double-booking is a way of life for GNER.
Delays and cancellations come as standard.
On this trip I had the added pleasure of unruly children with tired parents who had obviously given up attempting to control them. One child kept wailing "sweetie" for about ten minutes until she was finally carried to the vestibule at the end of the carriage, which was a mercy. (I applaud her parents for not giving in and just giving her a damn sweetie, but it tests the patience somewhat.) Her sister decided to use the luggage racks as a climbing frame, and the aisle as a running track. When they both decided to be dogs and proceeded to whine and, indeed, bark, I was almost moved to violence. ("Have you got children?" asked the man next to me. "No," I replied. "Wise move," he said.)
I just keep repeating my mantra: "It's better than taking the bus. It's better than taking the bus."
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