You know it’s going to be a fun journey when you get on the train and your olfactory senses are overwhelmed with The Lynx effect cranked up to the power of 11. That, or the thick fog of someone who’s obviously marinaded in Pretention For Men overnight. It’s kind of understandable if it’s some 14 year old kid trying to impress a girl but when it’s a middle aged bloke you can’t help but think that they should know of the miraculous properties of soap.
I guess I can take comfort in the fact that they didn’t deploy half a can of deodorant on themselves while actually on the train, gassing everyone close by. Something that seems to happen with alarming regularity in the office.
Since my records began (over 3 years ago) I have handed over somewhere in the region of £15,000 to the rail companies, mostly National Express East Anglia, formerly One. At the end of my London career I was handing over £361 per month for the privelidge of sitting on the floor in the foyer of London bound intercities and a further £40 a week to get to and from Cromer and my Tai Chi classes. Tot that lot up and it comes to over 6 grand a year. Even when I was working from home it was costing me £80+ every time I went to London (thankfully only a few times a month).
Between stopping work and now I must have spent £50 on the trains tops (which actually equates to quite a few trips as it’s only £6.20 return to Norwich off peak) which is a much better state of affairs. This changed yesterday when I handed over £1436 for an annual season ticket. It’s the cheapest season ticket I’ve had since I lived in Zone 2, something I was quite pleased about… which just goes to show how numb I’ve become the cost of rail travel.