Apathy Sketchpad

Today I took the train home from Luton. You know you’re in for a treat when your train ticket has a page two. My proposed route (as proposed by The Train Line took in no fewer than seven stations.

The plan was as follows:

1. Luton to Kings Cross Thameslink, 39 minutes train ride.
2. Kings Cross Thameslink to London Kings Cross. On foot.
3. London Kings Cross to Welwyn Garden City, 24 minute train ride.
4. Welwyn Garden City to Stevenage. 25 minutes. By bus.
5. Stevenage to Doncaster, 87 minute train ride. This leg starts five minutes after the bus is scheduled to arrive at Stevenage.
6. Doncaster to Wakefield Westgate, 19 minute train ride.

Few people believed this was possible.

For convenience, this information is also available in Google Earth format. (If you don’t know what Google Earth is, one obvious way of finding out suggests itself.)

I left Luton station at about quarter past two, on schedule. Luton station is not to be confused with Luton’s other stations, Leagrave and ‘Luton Airport Parkway’. I’m entirely unsure what a parkway is. The only one I have ever heard of is in Mariokart 64 and owned by a gorilla. Luton Station is the shabby one. My train arrived in London, again on time, and I left the station to find London Kings Cross.

The more astute of you will have noticed I haven’t been puttin an apostrophe in “Kings Cross”. This is deliberate. Apparently — by which I mean, according to Wikipedia — “King’s Cross” with an apostrophe refers to the area of London around the station, whose correct name has no punctuation at all. Why? I have no idea.

I’m also informed that there is a tunnel connecting London Kings Cross to Kings Cross Thameslink, via Kings Cross St. Pancras (because heaven knows two stations with the same name isn’t confusing enough), but that this tunnel has been closed since the July 7th attacks. Exactly what threat to security it posed I don’t know, but there you go. In the event, London Kings Cross wasn’t easy to find at first, because someone had incosiderately built a huge plyboard facade in front of it, obscuring it from view, but there’s only so much you can do to hide what is probably the biggest station in the country for very long. I found it with time to spare to catch the next train.

This train took me yo Welwyn Garden City. I have never been to a Garden City before. I wouldn’t be able to tell you what one was, even. I still can’t. But it has a big lovely station, and apparently not a great deal else. I gather the lines between there and Stevenage were being repaired, so the Replacement Bus Service took me there.

It also only has one working lift, which takes hours to go anywhere. The stairs were far more efficient, despite the slightly terrifying noise of the woman behind me, who was dragging her wheeled luggage down the staircase, or perhaps more accurately, running to avoid being mown down by her own clothes.

Luckily, the bus set off fifteen minutes earlier than scheduled (though other buses remained behind, or else this would have been far from lucky for other, equally punctual commuters), so I got to Stevenage in time to catch my next train.

I’ve been to Stevenage once before, and had the tour. I say “the tour”; it wasn’t one laid on by a tourist office, you understand. It was my friend Caroline’s “Stevenage Is A Dump” tour. (For some reason, whenever I travel the length of a country to visit someone they live somewhere nobody would ever want to visit.) It hasn’t changed a bit.

Stevenage station is a strange one. Rather than using departure boards or electronic computer screens like other stations, it uses a more traditional system of men in yellow suits telling people what to do. My stay in Stevenage was scheduled to last five minutes, and while it in fact lasted nearer ten I still don’t think that the four star hotel reccomended to me for this stay by The Train Line was a terribly useful contribution to my trip.

The train to Doncaster was terribly entertaining. There was a family of four sat around a table just behind me amusing themselves by playing poker for little plastic chips. The children’s average age must have been about eight. It got increasingly heated, and may at one point have involved the father threatening to turn the train round and go home, but by far the highlight was the following snippet:
“Ace and a queen is 21.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, in Blackjack an ace and a queen is 21.”
“But we’re not playing Blackjack. We’re playing Aces Wild.”

It was on this train that someone finally thought to check that I had paid for any of this jaunt. (I had.)

One of the problems with train stations is that they only tell you the final destinations of trains, and often refuse to tell you where else they stop until you’re at the platform. In Kings Cross Thameslink that’s no problem; they have a Trains-To-Bedford platform (platform A) and a Trains-From-Bedford platform (platform B), but in a major transportation hub like Doncaster that’s annoying. It took me a second to spot my train on the display, but eventually it started flashing on and off. I was unsure how they knew which one I was looking for, but then I realised that meant the train was boarding and dashed off to find it.

The train ride back to Wakefield Westgate, when such it finally turned out to be, was too short to be of any great interest. Also, although I try not to make a habit of looking at other people’s computer screens, when they’re two feet away from your face for twenty minutes you inevitably catch the odd word that particularly stands out. With that in mind, if you’re reading this, Crazy Jane, hello, and by the way, you have excellent taste in music.

So, I made it. Seven stations in six hours (and five minutes). I am the winner. In your face, various doubters! In. Your. Face! Haha!