The Anonymous Widower

What Is The Best Time To Buy Train Tickets?

On the 3rd of February, I’m going up to York to see my old boss.  The idea was to take the 10:00 from King’s Cross and then take the  19:35 back home after a meal and a chat.

So booking the ticket shouldn’t have been too difficult, especially as I tried to book the ticket on the 18th of January, sixteen days before travel.

I tried several times to book direct on the East Coast web site, but for some reason I couldn’t get an acceptable fare. The day before, I hadn’t had any problems and was rather surprised.

I should also say that I don’t like booking through agents and always prefer to deal with the company itself.  It all stems from an incident many years ago, when I was going round the United States and had booked on British Airways to fly to New York and then two days later on a direct flight in Continental from Boston to Houston.  The ticket agent at BA had told me that I would have to confirm the second flight in New York, as it was the only direct flight of the day and could be fully booked. As instructed I went into a travel agent in New York,  and was told that BA had made a mistake and booked me on a non-existent flight.  But no matter, he could book me by Atlanta on Delta.

But it didn’t just go by Atlanta, but virtually every other city in the eastern part of the United States.  I ended up in Houston, as a piece of chewed string at three in the morning.  But the travel agent had got his commission!

A few days later I flew Continental to Los Angeles.  I asked about the changed flight and the gate staff checked and found that the flight from Boston had run as normal and for my trouble they upgraded me to First.

So after the unsuccessful attempts to buy on East Coast, I looked at Grand Central, who also run trains on the route.  For the times, I wanted to travel, they were actually offering me tickets on East Coast.  So in the end I turned to the TrainLine and booked tickets at £24.10 up and £18.80 down, which was an acceptable price. I did pay a booking fee of £1.00 and a credit card fee of £3.50 on top, which I always find unacceptable.  I’m pretty certain, that East Coast don’t add miscellaneous charges. I also didn’t like the attitude of the TrainLine web site, which seemed to expect me to sign up to all sorts of dubious spam-producing loyalty offers.  In my view there is only one decent loyalty scheme on UK trains and that is Virgin’s, where if you enter your Virgin Flying Club number, you get a few extra points. Totally painless and they don’t spam.

Imagine my surprise though when on the next day, I tried out of curiosity to see what I would be charged on East Coast.  I could go up for £21.45 and down for £16.75 on the same trains, as I’d booked the previous day.

So if I’d waited 24 hours, I’d have saved £9.20.  Not a great deal of money, but I don’t like being ripped off by agents.

So why had I been unable to book direct on the 18th of January?

The obvious ones are.

  1. A fault on my computer.
  2. A bug on the East Coast web site. 
  3. Too many people trying to book overloading the web site.

I could also be paranoid and might suggest that the East Coast web site, was being deliberately overloaded by person or persons unknown.  I should say that a friend was also trying to book an Edinburgh London ticket at about the same time and she had similar problems to those I had of being unable to buy a ticket at a sensible price.

Since then, I’ve been looking at the East Coast web site and seeing what I would pay for the two tickets. Prices are as follows.

  • 20-January £21.45/£16.75
  • 21-January £21.45/£16.75
  • 22-January £21.45/£16.75
  • 23-January £21.45/£16.75
  • 24-January £25.85/£16.75
  • 25-January £25.85/£21.45
  • 26-January £39.15/£32.50
  • 27-January £28.35/£24.45
  • 28-January £25.85/£21.45
  • 29-January £25.85/£21.45
  • 30-January £25.85/£21.45
  • 31-January £25.85/£21.45
  • 1-February £25.85/£21.45
  • 2-February £25.85/£21.45
  • 3-February £57.80/£57.80

This simple example is showing that booking about two weeks before should give one of the best prices.  I shall continue to add more data to this table, to get a more definitive answer.

But whatever you do book direct! And judging by the last figure, when I attempted to book on the day of travel, the last minute option is not on, although I think that if I’d booked in the evening of the 2nd, I’d have got a better price!

Incidentally, when I went to Cambridge on Tuesday, I tried to book a ticket online at First Capital Connect.  They referred me to the TrainLine.  So I bought the ticket at the station.

January 27, 2011 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | 2 Comments

Flying The Queensland Coast

When C and I flew around Australia, one of the highlights of the flying was to take the plane off the Barrier Reef from Dunk Island and fly down to Brisbane. 

It was a long flight of about eight hours and it was necessary to refuel the aircraft half-way.  There were two choices; Rockhampton and Mackay. Rockhampton, which features in the floods as I write and reminded me of this story, was a little early, so I decided to use Mackay.

The flying was wonderful, as we at about eight thousand feet following the coast at a speed of about `120 or so knots.  We were also one of the few planes in the air, as the Australian airline pilots  were on strike, so there were no airliners at all.

Mackay welcomed us with open arms and the two refuelling companies almost fought to give us the best service.  We even ordered snacks over the radio on final approach.

In the end, we were on the ground for perhaps fifteen minutes on the one and only time I set foot in that part of Queensland.

January 1, 2011 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

The Worst Beer I Ever Had

As a coeliac, I don’t drink beer, except for the occasional one from Green’s which is gluten free. 

However watching the cricket from Australia has reminded me how bad their beer is.  When I went to Australia with C, I hadn’t been diagnosed as a coeliac, but as a proper man from Suffolk, I only drunk real ale and of course in a country like Germany, their real lager.  So I think virtually before we got to Australia, I had decided that I’d stick to the excellent wines and totally ignore the Fosters and the other products of chemical works.

I was also piloting an aircraft around the country, so obviously safety was paramount and alcohol was low down on my priorities.

I was  tempted once to have a beer and that was in a five-star hotel in Alice Springs. It was in a can, which is not the right place for any alcoholic drink anyway and called a Red Centre.

It was so bad, I gave up after perhaps a third of a glass.  I remember C was very surprised, as she always felt I could drink anything.

Talking of beers in cans, my father used to drink something called Long Life, which was a beer in the 1960s, that they said was brewed specifically for the can.  I did have a few at the time and the taste was not unlike the Green’s gluten-free beer I drink now., but rather gassy, with a chalky aftertaste. A good way to lose money would be to start brewing Long Life again, but then never underestimate beer drinkers’ taste.  Just advertise it a lot.

Incidentally, I’ve never drunk, anything like Fosters or Carling.  Trying Watney’s Red Barrel in the 1960s put me off that sort of so-called beer for life. But then I always had Adnams, Greene King, Youngs or Fullers on hand in Suffolk or London.

December 26, 2010 Posted by | Food, Transport/Travel, World | , , , | 2 Comments

It’s All So Bare Now!

I’ve packed up a lot of stuff and the house is now looking so bare.  I’ve found a few more gems, including a lovely postcard from Barbara Cassani, who started Go. You don’t hear much of her today, I hope she is OK. I’m just probably getting paranoid.

But look at this.

An Almost Bare Office

December 13, 2010 Posted by | Transport/Travel, World | , | Leave a comment

The Most Dangerous Part of an Aircraft

As someone who has over a 1,000 hours in command of light aircraft, with most of that in a big twin piston-engined Cessna 340, I read aviation stories, when I see them.

As to the most dangerous part of an aircraft, it’s the pilots, as this story proves.

I always remember the story of a Brazilian airliner that crashed on takeoff.  There was only two casualties, in that both pilots died, when the plane hit trees.  Afterwards it became apparent that they had been having a heated argument as they took off, which led to blows.

One doesn’t like to be uncharitable, but you can be if you want!

November 30, 2010 Posted by | News, Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment

Two Protests Against Airport Security

There are now two web-sites in the United States protesting about obsessive security at airports by staging protests over Thankgiving.

They are :-

  1. OptOutDay.com
  2. WeWontFly.com

It would appear that the protesters have a point, but what is going to happen on that day if several burqa’ed women turn up and just walk straight through the scanners without a protest, whilst a group of red-blooded American males are refusing to pass.

But isn’t it a case of too little too late?  If the United States had had some minimal security in place ten years ago, then the terrible attacks of September 11th, 2001, would not have been so catastrophic.

The terrorists were given an immense victory by American incompetence and do you wonder that they keep trying.

The United States has suffered masses of hijacks since the 1960s by Cubans and others and surely they should have taken steps to prevent them then! Or am I being simplistic? But compare the number of hijacks there has been in Europe over a similar timescale!

So tell me, why is it, Irish terrorists have never succeeded in hijacking an airliner?

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November 19, 2010 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment

Half an Hour Ahead and Twenty-Five Years Behind

I was listening to BBC Radio 5 this morning in bed and there was a bit of confusion in a report from Australia about the time of the Australia England Rugby League match in Melbourne.

I don’t know whether it’s still as confusing, but when I flew C and myself and C round Australia, we found that each State had different time-zones.

The title of this post, was the answer I got to the question “What time is it in Queensland?”, when I checked out of Alice Springs for my flight to Mount Isa.

We didn’t like Mount Isa, as we were only stopping for fuel and the guy in charge of it was a drunk named Cliff, who was the only objectionable person we met on that four weeks trip to Australia. 

By the way, Mount Isa makes Scunthorpe look like a garden city!

Whilst we’re on the subject of time, all flying is done to UTC or GMT, so a typical flight resulted in some pretty strange times in the log book.

October 31, 2010 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment

Airport Security

The phone-in on Radio 5 today was about airline security.

I’ve not flown since I returned from Hong Kong and I wonder if I’ll ever do it again. After all, I’ve travelled all over the UK by train and I’m now thinking of exploring Europe as far as Berlin.

Some pople on the phone-in were saying that they are getting fed-up with oppressive security and were now using Eurostar for Europe.  How many people are not travelling for business at all but are using innovative video and computer conferencing?

I just think that in a couple of years time, the pattern of travel will be very different to what it is now!

October 27, 2010 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | Leave a comment

Martin Broughton on Airport Security

He’s talking a lot of sense here.

The chairman of British Airways has said some “completely redundant” airport security checks should be scrapped and the UK should stop “kowtowing” to US security demands.

Practices such as forcing passengers to take off their shoes should be abandoned, Martin Broughton said.

And he questioned why laptop computers needed to be screened separately.

As to kowtowing to the United States, I’m with him on that one.  After all it could be argued that a lack of basic security checks in US airports allowed the atrocities of September 11th, 2001 to take place.

You defeat terrorism by being smart and getting everyone on side to fight it.  Not by alienating all the passengers by pointless checks, that might look good but are worthless!

October 27, 2010 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment

Britain Goes Nuclear

With the delaying and possible demise of the Severn Barrage, it would appear that we are going to bet on nuclear for our energy for the next few decades.

I don’t particularly mind, as I believe that nuclear is totally safe and of course carbon-free if it is properly designed, built and managed. THe only question is will the opponents of nuclear power stop the stations being built.  Or if they don’t stop them from being built, will it be the decision that gets the coalition turned out at the next election? The public always feel that anything nuclear is dangerous.  That is why you have an MRI Scan at the hospital, rather than an NMRI one. The N refers to the nuclear resonance of the molecules in your body to the magnetic fields imposed on them.

I still think that the Severn Barrage will be built but it will be very different to any scheme so far proposed. Except possibly the one by Sir Frederick Snow.

It will of course have a high and a low lake split by a central spine, so that reversible turbines can either generate electricity as water flows downhill or store energy by pumping water from the low to the high lake.  The trick that makes wind energy viable is being able to store the excess and pumping water uphill is the easiest way to do it.

Whether the spine will have an airport is a more difficult question to answer.  I think it will, and as the need to airports decreases through this century, if the fast rail (Note not high-speed!) was there, then it could replace airports at Cardiff, Bristol, Birmingham and to a certain extent, Heathrow.

As I reread my reflections on my trip to Scotland, then this could be an alternative south-western terminal of the West Coast Line. After all, the airport would be within two hours of most of London and Birmingham.

All this says is that we need to think boldly! In fact, we need to think very boldly!

We tend to base our planning on what we do today, not what we will be doing in thirty years time.

I’m just about to watch football on the television.  In 2040, will I be watching any match I want to in some form of immersion 3D system? And will I use the same technology to have business meetings with colleagues and clients?

October 18, 2010 Posted by | News, Transport/Travel | , , , , | 3 Comments

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