On Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:54:20 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

wrote:

So where in the UK is it possible to visit by coach that can't also be
visited by train + local bus? I've travelled by national express twice in
my life. Once because my cousin persuaded me and once because I thought
"perhaps its improved". It hadn't. Never ever again. Why people do it I
have
no idea.

You spend hours in traffic jams in a cramped seat and it takes 6 hours to
go
****ing nowhere as the damn bus does a spider crawl through 101 little
towns
to drop off come crusties or lavtian fruit pickers. An utterly horrid
form of
transport.

I've used National Express on occasions over the years for a mixture of
reasons:

* Getting an overnight journey between London & Edinburgh when I need to be
there by morning. There aren't many jams at night and the stops are all
reasonable. Compared to the cost of the sleeper, or the cost and difficult
early morning travel to fly it wasn't bad.

* Getting to Lancaster one weekend when the West Coast Main Line was ****ed
by engineering works.

* Getting back to Canterbury one night when I'd missed the last train from
London.

When a student in Cantebury I found some of my contemporaries were keen on
coaches and often society trips to London were done on National Express
rather than rail. I don't remember them being particularly jammed.

Whenever I've had to go to Oxford I've used the Oxford Tube to get there and
back - it's quite a good journey and not cramped at all.


You might be interested in this:
http://tinyurl.com/nzwaoo
or:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...nd-bus-service