Wednesday 28th July

A trip to Farnham in Surry via London gave me an opportunity to use the return half of my Oyster offer ticket on LondonMidland and to validate my comments on the comparison between LM first class and Chiltern standard class (see http://bit.ly/b2OJ89)

The 0753 LM train to London Euston actually arrives from Crewe so was not waiting in New Street when I arrived at 7.40. Though a good number of passengers got off and joined the four car unit, the First Class section was quiet (only 3 occupants) so a table was secured. Two got off at Coventry and one at Rugby so the compartment was left to myself apart from one 'joiner' at Long Buckby...

Naturally no revenue protection checks on board the train but, despite the busyness of the standard class accommodation (particularly after Northampton), noone seemed tempted to chance using it with a standard class ticket.

As I have commented before, the ride of the Class 350 EMUs is good so working in the first class compartment is a relative pleasure. In addition, once past Milton Keynes, my Vodafone dongle worked perfectly adequately... Of course, with the journey taking a booked 147 minutes (actually arrived around 5 minutes early), there is plenty of time to do so!

At Northampton, the Birmingham portion joins a further four carriages waiting there. The downside of this is that on arrival at Euston there is quite a walk to the exit barriers... Quite a scuffle here as people tried to hurry through them - no wonder that in past times, the staff have simply opened the gates and not bothered with the ticket check.

I returned on the 7pm Chiltern service from Marylebone. A fairly full Clubman but a table was available. Alas, it was one of the sets which haven't been fully upgraded so there were no sockets at the table - will Chiltern bother to finish this work now that Project Mainline is in full swing?

A good run back with a revenue protection check after Banbury. Clubmans also ride well but it has to be said that the country stretches play havoc with a dongle connection so working online is rather hit and miss.

The walk-on fare for the Clubman journey was £31.90 compared to the normal LM First Class fare of £95. As the Clubman journey is normally faster than the LM service (and at least as fast as the fastest LM evening trains), is there any real reason not to prefer Chiltern???