Trouble With Trains
It's all in the planning
The trouble that I have had when taking trains in London is numerous. When something goes wrong, especially when you know it, it can leave you stressed out and frazzled the entire way. I’ve never even gone on one without a ticket, and yet I still have had problems. First, however, you have pricing. There are so many different tickets at so many different costs and there so many rules. You can get 1/3 off if you travel in a group of three. Peak times are more expensive. Return tickets are cheaper than two singles, naturally, but the cheapest way to go anywhere is with a railcard and a travelcard. That rule, mind you, is only valid if you live outside of a zoned area. Once you are, particularly if you’re close enough for Tubes and Buses to be of use, Oyster pay-as-you go is the cheapest. Live outside them? Well, train times vary, and of course you’re going to end up running to catch one at some point, only you’re not keen on running so the entire ordeal leaves your lungs burning and the feeling like your hair is screaming.
Then, there’s when you lose your ticket. This happened to me once on my way to Putney to visit a friend. For once a ticket inspector had come around and I looked through my purse. Tried to find it. Couldn’t. Started to freak out and continued to freak out when the only orange ticket I could find was the receipt. Thankfully, he let me pass with that. I had to then convince someone else at Clapham Junction that I lost my ticket and needed to buy a new one, and thankfully I could do that, too.
I’ve bought discounted tickets only to realise that I had, stupidly, forgotten my railcard at home and had to try to navigate through Wi-Fi (phone was out of service) and try to get people at home to take a photo of the railcard and send it to me because my train was arriving and as soon as I left I’d have no way to receive it. Of course, in the fashion of all things, when they checked for my ticket they didn’t ask to see the railcard.
Didn’t stop me from stressing about it both ways, though. Even though I did end up getting that picture in the end.
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