In message , at 09:53:34 on Mon, 14 Mar
2011, Huge remarked:
Train is also a better environment to read/use a laptop/whatever in -

Not on a rush hour commuter train - which is the only place that trains
make sense.

Some say that they also make sense as a substitute for domestic flights
(from say Edinburgh to London).

The last time I travelled from London to Edinburgh and back, the flight cost
about 1/4 of the train fare.

It's not about fares[1], but comfort and saving the environment.

[1] Which can be skewed either one way or the other according to your
luck and the timing of your booking and the travel.
--
Roland Perry

On 14/03/2011 08:20, Huge wrote:
On 2011-03-14, Clive wrote:

Train is also a better environment to read/use a laptop/whatever in -

Not on a rush hour commuter train - which is the only place that trains
make sense.

I do Dales - Croydon a few times a year, and taking the train wins in
many ways. If I was shifting a family, the car could be cheaper, but I'm
not, it's just me, and the train is massively more relaxing. Four hours
when I can do what I want - work, read, eat, sleep, rather than
concentrating on driving.

As for the trains involved, I'm using commuter trains at the Croydon
end, though one will be off-peak, commuter/holidaymaker trains at the
dales end, and leeds to london is ECML. Though it's full of commuters
from London to Peterborough.

In message , at 12:03:48 on Mon, 14 Mar
2011, Huge remarked:

Train is also a better environment to read/use a laptop/whatever in -

Not on a rush hour commuter train - which is the only place that trains
make sense.

Some say that they also make sense as a substitute for domestic flights
(from say Edinburgh to London).

The last time I travelled from London to Edinburgh and back, the flight cost
about 1/4 of the train fare.

It's not about fares[1],

Must be nice to be that rich.

There are plenty of people whose time is worth more than a small
difference in fares. And the one which is cheapest on any one day is a
lottery.

but comfort

Good point, but in general I only find trains comfortable when they're
at least half-empty.

It gets a lot less comfortable as the train fills up, I agree. The last
train versus plane decision I made resulted in me travelling on an
almost empty TGV in France. But I plenty of time on my hands.

and saving the environment.

Hmmmm. Not one of my major considerations.

Some people do worry about such things.

[1] Which can be skewed either one way or the other according to your
luck and the timing of your booking and the travel.

Troo. But it was still cheaper to fly.

Next time, the train may be cheaper.
--
Roland Perry

On Mar 14, 8:53*pm, Huge wrote:
On 2011-03-14, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 08:20:18 on Mon, 14 Mar
2011, Huge remarked:

Train is also a better environment to read/use a laptop/whatever in -

Not on a rush hour commuter train - which is the only place that trains
make sense.

Some say that they also make sense as a substitute for domestic flights
(from say Edinburgh to London).

The last time I travelled from London to Edinburgh and back, the flight cost
about 1/4 of the train fare.

Meanwhile in the real world, I just checked the fares London-Edinburgh
for Wednesday 18 March.

A mid-morning Easyjet departure is GBP108 and train departure is
GBP57. For Thursday, Easyjet is the same price as the train.

For June 2 (random midweek some months ahead), the cheapest morning
Easyjet is GBP26; cheapest morning train is GBP18.55.

And you're full of ****.

JB

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 08:14:59PM -0700, NM wrote:

And train arrivals are predictable? they can be 10 minutes late before
it even counts as officially late, built in cushion to mask their poor
performance. You remind me of the old Reggie Perrin (Leonard Rossiter
RIP) with the daily standing joke about his late arrival down to the
railways, I don't think he arrived on time even once, comedy, yes but
based on reality.

You can generally reckon that a train will arrive within a few minutes
of its scheduled time, and that a car will also arrive within a few
minutes of its expected time. For longer journeys, however, the train
will still normally get there within a few minutes of its scheduled
time, but the car will have a much larger margin of error.

The old saw about trains always being late is quite simply a lie. My
father used to do Timetabling Stuff for the old Southern Region, and was
once called as a witness in a court case between someone who blamed his
constant late arrival at work on the trains and his ex-employer, who had
fired him. My old man had the evidence to prove that the chap who'd
been fired was a lieing sack of **** and that the trains did, in fact,
run on time in the vast majority of cases.

--
David Cantrell | Reality Engineer, Ministry of Information

Guns aren't the problem. People who deserve to die are the problem.

On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 09:56:32AM -0800, NM wrote:

Four people traveling to work in London and returning home at the end
of the working day would find it cheaper to hire a minicab than use
the train.

In the unlikely event that three people who live near you all work in
the same place as you do, and have the same start and finish times, you
may very well be right. In some places. You certainly wouldn't be
right where I live and work.

I estimate that the cab would cost 30 quid each way. That's 15 quid per
person per day. Or you could get a monthly travelcard for under seven
quid per working day, so well under half the price (under a third of the
price if you consider that you can also use it at weekends), and way
more convenient because your social life won't be constrained so much by
other people.

--
David Cantrell | Enforcer, South London Linguistic Massive

I caught myself pulling grey hairs out of my beard.
I'm definitely not going grey, but I am going vain.

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 09:33:13AM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

But I agree that the "laptop on a rush hour train" scenario is far from
ideal.

True, but only because the tables are a little bit too high. It's still
usable, I see the evidence all around me every morning and evening.

--
David Cantrell | Minister for Arbitrary Justice

Perl: the only language that makes Welsh look acceptable

In message , at 14:19:25
on Tue, 15 Mar 2011, David Cantrell remarked:

But I agree that the "laptop on a rush hour train" scenario is far from
ideal.

True, but only because the tables are a little bit too high. It's still
usable, I see the evidence all around me every morning and evening.

You seem to be assuming people have a seat. And that the tables exist at
all (or are more than bump on the wall that can't even take two coffee
cups).
--
Roland Perry

On Mar 16, 3:06*am, Roland Perry wrote:
But I agree that the "laptop on a rush hour train" scenario is far from
ideal.

True, but only because the tables are a little bit too high. *It's still
usable, I see the evidence all around me every morning and evening.

You seem to be assuming people have a seat. And that the tables exist at
all (or are more than bump on the wall that can't even take two coffee
cups).

This is why I have two laptops - a brick, which is basically for
transportable purposes (but runs FAST), and a netbook, which weighs
next to nothing and can quite merrily go on my lap when there are no
tables. And only cost GBP200.

Using it standing up might be a challenge. But IMX any journey that's
long enough for a laptop to be worth bothering with is also one where
you're likely to end up with a seat - either because you're coming in
from Far Away, or because you're coming in High Barnet / Stanmore on
an inner-suburban line.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

In message
, at
19:46:33 on Tue, 15 Mar 2011, john b remarked:
But I agree that the "laptop on a rush hour train" scenario is far from
ideal.

True, but only because the tables are a little bit too high. *It's still
usable, I see the evidence all around me every morning and evening.

You seem to be assuming people have a seat. And that the tables exist at
all (or are more than bump on the wall that can't even take two coffee
cups).

This is why I have two laptops - a brick, which is basically for
transportable purposes (but runs FAST), and a netbook, which weighs
next to nothing and can quite merrily go on my lap when there are no
tables. And only cost GBP200.

Almost always, when I'm on a train I'll be needing my full-size laptop
at the destination. Although I go to great efforts to have a lightweight
but powerful machine as a result.

Using it standing up might be a challenge. But IMX any journey that's
long enough for a laptop to be worth bothering with is also one where
you're likely to end up with a seat - either because you're coming in
from Far Away, or because you're coming in High Barnet / Stanmore on
an inner-suburban line.

The hour that's least likely to reward me with a seat is the first hour
*out* of London - going into London is usually easier to get a seat
because as you hint I'll have boarded when it was lighter loaded. But
another 1hr trip I do from time to time (KX Thameslink to/from Gatwick)
can get pretty busy too.
--
Roland Perry