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Bill Jamieson
First class is better without any passengers
I have been following the controversy over the chancellor’s resort to first class rail travel with interest. Like the editor of the Scottish Review, I am also a non-car owner and use the train frequently. But I have cause to be wary of resort to first class travel as this in my experience has proved to be quite the worst option.
For many years I commuted daily between Shenfield, Essex and London Liverpool Street. In ‘normal’ circumstances – those occasions when there were sufficient carriages for the number of passengers and the trains were running roughly to time – the commute was not bad as such journeys go. The time was typically just under an hour – shorter if you could get a fast train hurtling to Colchester or Norwich with a limited number of stops. If not, it was a slow all-stops crawl through Stratford, Ilford, Romford and beyond.
In the crowded compartments, life could be dangerous as, by the time the train chuntered towards Ilford or Romford, the beef burgers and alcohol had curdled in the stomach. The warning signs, amid the mayhem of shouting, leering, pestering and general mayhem, was a falling silent of your travelling companion in the seat opposite, a notable discolouring of the face from grey to green, a sudden bulging of the cheeks and an explosion of vomit onto your lap.
Matters were always worse when the individual thought unpleasantness could be avoided by vomiting out of the window. You could safely rely on Essex Girl to opt for this more sophisticated option. Holding a beef burger in one hand and a gold-tipped menthol cigarette between the fingers of the other, there was always a frantic pulling open of the small sliding windows, followed by a cascade of vomit as the wind blew the expelled materials back along the length of the compartment.
This was so regular an occurrence – and the subsequent fight in the compartment so menacing – that I sought refuge by purchasing, at considerable expense, a first class monthly season ticket in the hope of escape. I did not want to work or make private calls. I just wanted to travel safely late at night, in relatively peaceful surroundings and above all to remain dry.
However, I had quite forgotten that, in the surge of alcohol-fuelled bravura that marked so many fellow passengers at this hour, the first class compartments were always the ones to become filled to overflowing. Everybody wanted to try it on. And, such was the higher probability of vomiting alcohol and deep-fried chicken nuggets, the risk of being splattered before the train reached Ilford was higher than in standard class.
Inspectors on the train? Guards at this hour? What do you think?
I quickly learnt that, for a safer and less unpleasant journey, it was better to remain in standard class. The other risk with first class was that a person travelling on his own and earnestly seeking not to draw the attention of other passengers was very liable to be picked upon and subjected to verbal abuse. As I say, there being no guards, it was safer to travel in standard where at least there was some safety in numbers.
I am told the late-night Glasgow-Edinburgh journeys can be found to share similar characteristics. I have never dared to enter those little glass box first class compartments for fear that as the train hurtled through Croy on its dark journey through the Transylvania that is middle Scotland, there really would be no dry corner in the Vomit Comet.
Standard class? Every time for me.
Bill Jamieson is the editor of ScotBuzz
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