Using the train – 1

I have just started an assignment that requires me to be in Reading. After some "negotiation" with my employer I have agreed to do 2 days each week, back to back with an overnight stay. Some will ask "So? What's the big deal?" The big deal is that I am officially my mother's carer and the primary contact for Dad's nursing home in the event of an emergency - which is difficult to respond to (other than by taking a phone call) if I'm working 3 hours away AND dependant on the train.

So don't use the train you'll say. OK, but then company policy dictates that I should use a hire car when I have a perfectly good 2 litre VW Passat sat at home on the drive AND a motorbike in the garage. If I use the motorbike then I'd have to leave it overnight in the firm's car park as the firm's preferred hotel has no parking facilities (Mercure George Hotel).

So I'm on the train... For the first time in years I'm using public transport as the government would want us to. Booking tickets ahead of journey time to get whatever discount is available. Getting my son Andy to drop me off and collect me so that my car doesn't incur parking charges (£12.50 per day at Derby). Walking from Reading station to the office is no hardship and probably quicker than getting a taxi. So what is my beef?

My beef is this. I pre-booked table seats with power so I could use my laptop during the journey, and on taking up my seat I find that there are 3 of us at a table for 4 but just 2 power outlets and neither of them work. Ah well, I didn't want to start work early anyway, but my fellow travellers are mightily peeved and go in search of power while I simply decide to waste my journey time looking at the passing world. Except there's a problem doing that. Having had a forward facing seat leaving Derby I find that for the majority of the journey (Birmingham to Reading) the train is "in reverse" and I'm facing backwards which means that the world has passed me by before I get to see a glimpse of it.

I then waste (sorry, spend) 2 days in an office atending meetings and preparing as required for the project ahead before returning to Reading station for the reverse journey, literally. I'm in my seat and the train is going backwards so that yet again I get a reverse view of the English countryside, to Birningham New Street where I find I'm forward facing for the final leg into Derby. No problem there then, except for a few points.
1. I caught an early train for the return trip so no reserved seat, no table seat so no laptop use.
2. The seat next to me seems to be part of a game of musical chairs (yes, I know it is public transport but this wouildn't happen if I was DRIVING MY CAR). One occupant had headphones on so loud that people in the seats ahead and behind can hear his (neandertal) choice in "music" which accompanies his constant snorting and coughing (accompanied by that of the traveller in the seat behind me). Two others are female but seem to be of the opinion that the male of the species (i.e. me) is a thing of abhorance if their body language is anything to go by.
3. Of the 4 occupants only the one from Birmingham to Derby participated in any conversation which would have been a normal feature if I was driving.

So I have completed my first (or many) stints in Reading and find that I have little option but to let the train take the strain but what others swear by I find myself swearing at. The trains fail to live up to expectations and I'm robbed of the opportunity to benefit from using my own transport.