UK Trip - December 2015 / January 2016

[SurfRail]

Will be off to The Metropole at the end of the year.

Will be going to Thurso and Wick and a lot of the east coast of Scotland, plus any number of other places throughout England.  Very keen in particular to see the Blackpool Flexity 2s.

[ozbob]

Happy travels!  Hope not too cold ...  look forward to some insights from overseas!

[SurfRail]

Arrived yesterday local time.

Thoughts so far:

- Heathrow Express gets up to the kind of clip the Airtrain never would, which makes a nice change.
- Wayfinding at Paddington = horrid to non-existent.  I'm prepared to give this a pass seeing they are rebuilding it for Crossrail etc.
- Buses buses buses everywhere.  Most of what I've seen appear to be the newer Borismasters.
- The older and newer Oyster gates have faster reaction times than ours do, but I wouldn't say it's hugely different.
- The deep level tubes are loud and the ride quality isn't brilliant.  In my mind it just adds up to more fun, but I wonder how you would go actually living with it.  In places, it is not too dissimilar to crossing the Coomera River bridge at speed.
- In general terms - 1p and 2p coins are infuriating and the Monopoly money bank notes are stupidly big.  (My credit card was compromised overnight - unrelated to my trip - so I may need to rely on my cash more than I had planned.)
- The first thing I bought in cash apart from a Heathrow Express ticket and an Oyster was a bottle of Bundaberg Ginger Beer I found in a shop on the south bank at Westminster Bridge.  Common Australian booze is widely available in shops, especially the more mass market wines (eg Yellowtail, Hardys, Yalumba)
- Pedestrian crossings do not appear to involve any kind of audible warning.

[ozbob]

Thanks for the update!  Glad you arrived safely and are out and about.  Have fun!

[OzGamer]

If you get a chance, see if you can get on the newer Jubilee line - it's the bit from Westminster on, all the way to Canary Wharf and Stratford. It would be interesting to see your reaction to that compared to the older deep tube lines. It also has platform doors.

Also, you can play the fun game of coming up from a tube station without looking at your phone or a map and see how long it takes you to work out which way you're facing.

Ahh...love London and am very jealous.

[Gazza]

Another fun game is to go around the corner from on the DLR near poplar without holding on.

[SurfRail]

Currently sitting in the Virgin First Class lounge waiting for the Caledonian Sleeper.

Further observations:
- Overground trains seem to have exceptionally long timeframes between the train stopping and the doors being released.
- The range of retail offerings at even basic stations is very wide ranging, let alone what you get at the major London terminals and the bigger interchanges.
- Formatting of announcements is a bit inconsistent - sometimes you get which side the platform is on sepending on which part of the system you are on.
- I've yet to see anybody having a sook about the lack of latitudinal seating on the Underground and Overground.

[ozbob]

Sleep well!   

>> https://www.scotrail.co.uk/plan-your-journey/travel-connections/caledonian-sleeper

[petey3801]

Did you enjoy the use of the rubbish bins in London? 

[SurfRail]

Did you enjoy the use of the rubbish bins in London? 

Yup - also the PIDS at rural stations with 3-4 trains each way per day.

I passed through Altnabreac today which is in the the top 10 least used stations in the UK.