"Graeme" wrote in message
...
In message
d wrote:

On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:12:54 +0000
Graeme wrote:
Please explain how you take another route when you are already on the
M4.

The chances of there being a big queue on the M4 that the london radio
stations don't know about when most do travel news every 15 mins is
pretty
slim. Probably about the same as you getting on a train and it getting
stuck just outside the station.

15 minutes is more than long enough to drive past the last escape route
and
get stuck.

It's not unknown for quite a time to pass between an accident happening and
the first report of it on travel news, nor is it unknown for the first
report on travel news to give wrong information, e.g, about the location of
the accident.

Peter

On Mar 9, 5:07*pm, wrote:

On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:42:57 +0000
Ivor The Engine wrote:

[1] Train to airport = 5 minute walk to station, £8 - £20 return,
takes just over an hour
Taxi to airport = no walk, £100+ return, takes just over an hour if
the M6 and M60 aren't busy[2].

If train works for you then fine but last time I flew I had to go to
gatwick - and i live in north london:

PT - 10 min walk to tube.

Nice stretch of the legs before lots of travelling. (That should wind
you up nicely!)

Probably 10 min wait for tube.

Hmm - I know you hate the Piccadilly line but that's unrealistic most
of the time (cue tirade of how bad the Picc service is).


Hopefully only 40 mins to victoria but who knows.

Half hour journey time from Arnos Grove if all the lines are in
operation (easy interchange at Finsbury Park for the Victoria line) -
I dunno the station you're starting from though.


Wait 10 mins to buy ticket at victoria +
probably 10 to 15 min to wait for train which takes about 30 mins so say 1.45
though I've never done it in less than 2.

No need to wait at Victoria as you can buy Gatwick Express tickets on
the train. There are also dedicated GatEx ticket machines and a ticket
window at the buffer end of the GatEx platforms.

So if you get your skates on you might do it in 1:15 to 1:30 hours.


And if you're going on a w/e then half the tube will be closed for catch up
engineering work so add on 20 mins.

Oh , and if you just manage to catch the train to gatwick as its about to
leave good luck on finding a seat.

Get stuffed Boltar, this proves your rhetoric is simply divorced from
reality. The Gatwick Express has loads of seats most of the time. Even
if you're travelling on the slightly slower but cheaper Southern
service, then in all likelihood be able to get a seat. The only time
you might be pressed to do so is during the evening rush hour (though
I think the extended GatEx services might be ok for seats).


Taxi - 10 second walk to taxi. Journey outside rush hour takes about 80 mins.
Less on weekends. Nice and comfy, no hassle.

******** to PT.

In article , (Graeme)
wrote:

Please explain how you take another route when you are already on
the M4. You can use crayon if that is all they will allow you.

Get off at the next junction, maybe? The M4 is 193 miles long and has 49 junctions -
that's a junction every 4 miles or so, on average.

--
Paul Cummins - Always a NetHead
Wasting Bandwidth since 1981

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

When Crossrail eventually arrives at Heathrow then I'm sure Oyster
PAYG (or whatever it has become by that point) will be valid on teh
Crossrail services at least. Whether HEx will still exist as a
separate service is yet to be seen. Still, plenty of time for TPTB to
sort all that out.

You're more optimistic than me about that.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 9 Mar, 12:36, wrote:
On Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:29:05 -0000



"Peter Masson" wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:49:57 +0000
Graeme wrote:
Like I said in a another post , the piccadilly line has almost caused me
to
miss flights twice at heathrow.

The M3 has almost caused me to miss flights twice at Heathrow.

Well perhaps you or your cabbie should have listened to the travel news.
Huge jams generally get reported very quickly.

There was an occasion when the M25 got completely blocked by an accident,
and many people were held up for 5 hours and missed flights at Gatwick. Some
had passed the last exit (M26 Wrotham) before the accident happened.

**** will occasionally happen. But there are works access only escape routes
off the M25 between the M26 and Clackett lane services not to mention the staff
exits from the services themselves. So theres really no excuse for people being
stuck for that long except the police being the usual bloody minded jobsworths
that they tend to be. Other countries usually manage to free up at least one
lane even when theres a bad crash to let stuck vehicles through, but not here.
Evidence and all that blah ****ing blah.

Many travel insurance policies will pay out if you miss a flight because of
public transport delays; most won't pay out if you are delayed by a traffic
jam or a breakdown when in your own car.

I'd still sooner trust the roads.

B2003

Of course if one of your relatives was involved you'd berate the
police for not preserving evidence or making the fire brigade take
short cuts in removing them and causing serious injury, but please
continue your trolling, I find it amusing.

On 9 Mar, 10:34, Ivor The Engine wrote:
On Tue, 9 Mar 2010 09:31:38 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

I've never yet had a problem with a minicab turning up late or getting lost.
The same with black cabs.

Lucky you. *I've had a minicab driver that thought Manchester Airport
was off the M62 (it's the M56) and was heading for Warrington before I
could point out he was going the wrong way. *It added 22 miles to the
journey.

I can trump that, Black cab driver heading out of London towards
Heathrow Terminal 4, straddled the lane in front of our patrol car.
Had three in the back. He was still ****ed from the night before.

On 9 Mar, 08:50, Mizter T wrote:
On Mar 9, 6:47*am, Philip wrote:

Philip wrote:

Peter Masson wrote:
BAA don't want ticket gates for their platforms at Heathrow, though
this might not be a problem if TfL (and their customers) were prepared
to accept increased charges for unresolved journeys, in case they
ended at Heathrow Connect. More to the point, can TfL come up with a
method of using Oyster PAYG as far as Hayes & Harlington then a paper
ticket on to Heathrow. How does a passenger touch out while staying on
the train at Hayes & Harlington?

Why do they have to have gates? What's wrong with a few validators? It's
what they on DLR and much of National Rail anyway.

Given that HEx and Connect will be used by lots of people unfamiliar
with the need to validate, having open platforms at either end
(Heathrow stations and Paddington) might well prove problematic in
terms of passengers failing to touch-in and out.



Also, the couple of times I've used Connect, my ticket has always been
checked between Hayes and Heathrow. Could the ticket examiners carry
some sort of portable validator?

That's a possibility, yes - though it would be a bit infeasible to
require the ticket examiner to get round the whole train between
Heathrow Central (T123) and Hayes and Harlington station.

When Crossrail eventually arrives at Heathrow then I'm sure Oyster
PAYG (or whatever it has become by that point) will be valid on teh
Crossrail services at least. Whether HEx will still exist as a
separate service is yet to be seen. Still, plenty of time for TPTB to
sort all that out.

Similar policies apply in some other countries and airport lines are
not treated as part of the national network. Vienna for example.

d wrote:
On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:42:57 +0000
Ivor The Engine wrote:
[1] Train to airport = 5 minute walk to station, £8 - £20 return,
takes just over an hour
Taxi to airport = no walk, £100+ return, takes just over an hour if
the M6 and M60 aren't busy[2].

If train works for you then fine but last time I flew I had to go to
gatwick - and i live in north london:


Oh cool, I live in North London as well.

PT - 10 min walk to tube. Probably 10 min wait for tube. Hopefully only 40
mins to victoria but who knows. Wait 10 mins to buy ticket at victoria +
probably 10 to 15 min to wait for train which takes about 30 mins so say 1.45
though I've never done it in less than 2.

PT - 3 min walk to Tube (yes, OK, I'm luckier than most). Probably 2 min
wait for the train (usually less). 40 mins to Victoria, as it is 98% of
the time when I make that journey to work. Wait 2 mins to buy or collect
ticket at Victoria (usually a £3 Advance). Board train, which leaves
soon, since I've timed my journey on the Tube to catch it. 30 mins to
Gatwick in the front coach with a nice seat at a table.

And if you're going on a w/e then half the tube will be closed for catch up
engineering work so add on 20 mins.

Nah, not half. Sorry. Wrong. Some, yes, but you are supposed to check
before you travel and allow for that.

Oh , and if you just manage to catch the train to gatwick as its about to
leave good luck on finding a seat.

Mmmm, yes, we caught the 16:47 ex-Victoria a couple of weeks ago and
there were still seats until departure.

Taxi - 10 second walk to taxi. Journey outside rush hour takes about 80 mins.
Less on weekends. Nice and comfy, no hassle.

Taxi... wait for it to turn up, sit there for a bit, panic when you get
stuck in a traffic jam, get to the airport in the same time as the
train, pay through the nose.

******** to PT.

You must have more money than sense.

B2003


Cheers

Steve M

On Tue, 9 Mar 2010 18:04:09 -0000
"Peter Masson" wrote:
Although there's often a queue at the main ticket office at Victoria, there
are plenty of ticket machines, there's a separate Gatwick Express ticket

Which also have queues and frequently didn't work.

office which rarely has a queue, and tickets to Gatwick can be bought on
Gatwick Express trains.

Didn't know that.

from tube stations. Gatwick Express trains almost always have available
seats, even the peak trains which run through to Brighton. As you are happy
to take a taxi from North London to Gatwick you obviously wouldn't mind the
slightly higher fare for Gatwick Express compared with the Southern trains.

Slightly higher? A lot higher last time I checked it out. Hardly worth it
to save all of 10 mins. Aside from that the journey is identical.

B2003

On Tue, 9 Mar 2010 10:15:18 -0800 (PST)
Mizter T wrote:
Hmm - I know you hate the Piccadilly line but that's unrealistic most
of the time (cue tirade of how bad the Picc service is).

Sometimes its 1 min, sometimes its 10.

Get stuffed Boltar, this proves your rhetoric is simply divorced from
reality. The Gatwick Express has loads of seats most of the time. Even

I've never used gatwick express.

if you're travelling on the slightly slower but cheaper Southern
service, then in all likelihood be able to get a seat. The only time

Yes you can get a seat if you get on it early enough but it tends to get
crowded towards departure time.

B2003