Putting the 'rail' into BR

As with many things in life - cricket, rugby, enormous greasy breakfasts - trains are a thing that we invented and now everyone else, pretty much worldwide, does them better than us. I travelled round a bit of India a few years ago with a friend and we marvelled at their superlative trains. The first one we got on, in Delhi, left exactly on time, and was the most comfortable form of transport we'd ever been on. 'Why can't British trains be like this?' we asked ourselves.

We were later to discover that the fact this train originated in Delhi, rather than coming from elsewhere, was crucial to its punctuality. The next train we got on was an awesome six hours late. Which, naturally, they don't announce when you arrive at the station - they just tell you in 20-minute bursts that it's delayed. There's only so long you can spend watching monkeys scampering around on a train platform before you feel bone-shatteringly bored. And that's before you climb aboard for a ten-hour journey. Still, in general the trains were great; it announced on the outside of each carriage who was supposed to be travelling therein (this seemed hugely organised. Largely pointless, but organised). The bunks in the sleeper carriages were perfectly comfortable. And it all probably cost about a fiver, no matter how far you were going (we'd got a company to book all our trains and hotels for us, so we didn't have any stress at all; certainly not the kind where it takes you three hours of internet searching to find your 'ideal' hotel, because the two duff reviews out of 20 have convinced you that every place must, in fact, be a hellhole; or you've discovered that on exactly the day you want to be there, the rooms have mysteriously trebled in price.)

When you travel on BR, however, which I'm increasingly going to have to do, there is nothing that fails to piss you off. My latest return ticket cost a whopping £183.50. I probably could've had a long weekend in Prague for that! Needless to say, because I hadn't booked the exact date and time of the return portion, I wasn't guaranteed a seat. 'I'll see if I can book it over the phone', I thought, on the morning I was due to travel. I spoke, of course, to someone in India. He ran through all the details - type of ticket, what it'd cost, when I'd bought it, when I wanted to travel - and then said he couldn't book me a seat. I'd have to go down to the ticket office to do that. (He probably had a quick chuckle to himself as he thought of his own, superior, trains). WHY? The whole process is automated. On computers. A computer which has exactly the same information in Delhi as it does in Durham. So, I had to cab it down from the office to the station in order to guarantee having enough time to buy lunch AND travel 3/4 of a mile down the platform in order to secure an unsecured seat.

Then, you get on the train and whip out your laptop, because you are a busy executive. Well, that's what everyone's pretending to be, whilst watching DVDs and catching up on gossip blogs (ahem). I'd like to point out that it's summer hours, so I'm technically off work. Screw you, The Man! Anyway, I digress. Despite the fact that they've managed to sort out free wi-fi (which is a total miracle to a Luddite like me), they haven't managed to put a plug socket next to every seat, just some of them. Why? Why do they do this? It's not like they're Ryan Air and they can charge you extra for the plug socket (in the same way that you don't get a refund on part of your ticket if you never manage to get a seat). There's nothing (as far as I know) to indicate socket-free sections. There's just the joy of a double seat with a table, almost immediately tempered by the lack of a socket, and thus the worry that your laptop is suddenly going to die, right in the middle of that very important Powerpoint presentation that you were struggling with.

Then there are the 'refreshments'. If I've paid the better part of £200 to get to Edinburgh and back (which takes at least four and a half hours each way), then is it really too much to ask that I can actually get a filter coffee on board? For less than the price of my mortgage? I'm sure if you take out a second mortgage and upgrade to First Class, then you've probably got Mr Arabica himself grinding your beans, asking you exactly how frothy you want your milk and making little pictures of you in cocoa powder on top of it. But here in Cattle, even if you go to the refreshment area, rather than taking your chances with the trolley (and I, on this journey, am perched within spitting distance of this culinary oasis, which looked, to my naive eyes, to have an actual coffee machine), what you end up with is powdered coffee. Powdered coffee and that shit milk in tiny plastic containers, the opening of which is guaranteed to leave you with spurty milk everywhere (and which you always have to use two of. Why don't they double the size of the frigging things?) For this hateful beverage, I got charged £1.70. £1.70!

I wanted to throw the fucking thing back in the server's face. I know it's not her fault, but a small piece of her soul must surely die every time she enacts this transaction. 'Hi, I've added some water, which seems to be at the ambient temperature of the sun, to some granules. Yes, you have to add your own milk and take your chances it's not going to end up down your front. Yes, you'll also have to either balance the two irritating half-amounts-of-what-you-need,-milk-wise and a stirrer on the top of the coffee, or have an annoying bag. Which will be too much hassle to recycle, so you'll just throw it away, adding to the mountain of landfill. Can I have £1.70? [Please don't ask me why it's this much, I haven't had any training in dealing with Rail Rage.]'

Is it any wonder that, even though I love travelling on trains, the time difference is negligible (once you've got yourself to/through/from the airport) and there are all the eco-benefits of going by rail, the £35 Easyjet fare looks really, really appealing? Yeah, they charge you for baggage, but most of the time I'm only going to need a wheely suitcase. And yes, going through airports is a nightmare if you're both guilt-ridden and neurotic, what with stressing about your shoes, your belt, your keys, your phone, your toiletries and the fact that you accidentally forgot that you had a free badge from an Edinburgh Festival comedy show in your handbag. But I'm starting to think it's a small price to pay for the fact that you can get a coffee, an actual, proper, perfectly potable coffee, before you get on board. Even if you don't have a designated seat on the plane either.