On Tue, 3 Feb 2009 13:09:52 +0000, Tom Anderson put finger to keyboard
and typed:

On Tue, 3 Feb 2009, Mark Goodge wrote:

by whatever method (car/bus/tube/taxi/walk/etc) will take me there. The
idea of using station retail facilities for a quick shop on the way
through after arrival hadn't occurred to me. But, given that I do most
of my supermarket shopping on the way home from work (by car), it's not
unreasonable for rail commuters to want to be able to do the same thing
when arriving home by train. The obvious locations, though, for station
supermarkets would be commuter stations at the "home" end of the route,
rather than the city centre destination stations.

... and apply it!

The advantage of being able to do your shopping at the starting end is
that you can do it while waiting for your train, which is time you're
going to be spedning hanging around the station anyway. If the shop is at
the destination end, then every minute spent shopping is a minute later
walking in your front door.

Hmmm. I see your point, but I can't imagine any situation in which I'd
be likely to put it into practice. When I commuted by rail, my journey
home was essentially continuous (walk-tube-train-walk) with no more
than a few minutes wait at any point (unless something had gone
horribly wrong), so spending any time shopping at the station in
between tube and train (or in between office and tube) would have
risked missing the train I intended to catch. And now that I don't
commute as such by train, but do visit London by train quite often on
business, I don't think I'd particularly want to lug a bag of shopping
onto the train with me at Euston - especially since I'll have to carry
it from the station to my car at the other end and I'll already have a
briefcase and/or laptop with me.

On the other hand, when I lived in Ely and used the train to visit
Cambridge fairly often for leisure purposes (mostly going out for a
beer in the evening with friends or colleagues), I'd often pop into
the Tesco next to the station on the way home and pick up the odd item
that I thought I needed.

Mark
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