I went to Birmingham yesterday for a meeting of the National Council of the Campaign for an English Parliament.

Parking in Birmingham is a nightmare at the best of times, especially in the city centre where the National Council meets, so I catch the train.  This was the first time I’ve caught the train since Arriva finally added an extra pair of carriages to the train into Birmingham and it made all the difference.

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve stood all the way from Telford to Birmingham and again all the way back.  It’s not fun and when they charge nearly £8 for the privelege, it takes the piss.  But gone are the days of cattle class travel that wouldn’t look out of place in India – I had the luxury of sitting all the way there and all the way back in reasonable comfort.  There was no internet access and no power socket for my laptop but they don’t do first class on that route and I wouldn’t pay for it anyway!

The only complaints I had about my journey were, at Birmingham New Street station they had 8 members of staff at the ticket desk which nobody was using and only 2 on the enquiries desk where people were queueing to be served and the train on the way back was having some sort of mechanical problem, probably a dodgy clutch or gearbox, which meant that the thing kept juddering along before dropping down a gear for a while and then back up a gear and into juddering mode again.

Oh yeah and having all the safety signs on one side of the carriage written only in Welsh probably isn’t the best or safest way of doing things for a train that spends most of its journey in England.

Technorati Tags: Arriva, Trains, Telford, Birmingham, Birmingham New Street