This week I'll be mostly on the train

"Leaving on the midnight train,
Leaving, never gonna come back again"
- Rossi/Young

It's been around 10 years since I last did a regular amount of commuting on the train.  Back in the early 90s I was getting the Brimsdown to Harlow for a couple of years.  It was a nice little half hour journey, and I didn't appreciate how good I had it.  By the mid 90s I was doing Broadstairs to Tonbridge, one and a half hours on a good day, two changes, one at Margate and one at Ashford.  It was a nightmare, but not quite as bad as driving.  By 2001 I was getting the 4:30 Margate to Victoria, which took two and a half hours to get into London, two and three quarters to get out.  When 9/11 happened and we all emptied out of London expecting to find planes flying into Canary Wharf or whatever, I had a carriage to myself.  The train at platform 5 was due out already and people were quite literally fighting to get on.  Me and handful of other people just went and sat on the later train on platform 7.  When our train left on time with a dozen passengers on it, the platform 5 was still bursting at the seams and the guards still couldn't get all the doors closed.  Since then, I've driven or flown to every place I've worked at.  But we digress.

Now I'm getting the 6:35 Exeter to Southampton Parkway.  Three hours, then add the 45 min drive to Exeter and the 10 minute cab the other end to Eastleigh, basically we're talking 4 hours door to door.

Back in the old days, the way to make sure you got a seat was to buy a first class season ticket.  Now, here in the 21st century, you can reserve a seat.  This is annoying because I'm getting on a totally empty train so there's no need to reserve my seat, but it's almost at Tiverton before I've actually found a seat that doesn't have a reserved ticket on it.

Back in the old days, I used to get some sleep on the 4:30 Margate because (a) it terminated at Victoria, and (b) I was in a nice quite first class compartment.  On this new commute I have to change at Westbury, which is well over an hour away, but it's not a terminating stop, so I need to be awake.  Same again from Westbury to Southampton, another hour.  Same again from Southampton Central to Parkway, which is only one stop anyway.

Back in the old days, I would do these journeys 5 days a week for 6 months or so.  This time I'm doing Monday and Friday, and I've only got 3 weeks of this before its all change again...

In fact, today I'm on a different train, on Hythe pier.

<Anorak alert: warning> It's the world's oldest working pier train on the 7th longest pier in the UK. </Anorak alert: end>

If you're the reader who's paying attention (rather than the one who comes here for the pictures), then you are wondering about the two loose ends in this week's ramble:  Why only three weeks of Exeter to Southampton?  And, what's a pier train got to do with a story about commuting?

Well, the Devon to Hampshire commute is coming to an end because we've found our next abode; and Hythe pier is right opposite our new house.  So from next week I'll be getting the 7:40 Hythe, arriving 2 minutes and 2,100ft later at Hythe, then getting the ferry across to Southampton.

You already know what the title of next week's 'This Week' will be, right?