I’M giving the train a go — again.
I got the train for the first three years I worked in Inverness and then had to give up and get back in the car. I’ve now been travelling by car for five years.
For the first while the train was great. I can’t get the train every day because sometimes I need to have the car with me for work purposes. That means there’s no point in getting a weekly or monthly season ticket.
The full return fare from Fearn to Inverness is an eye-watering £13.60. However, there’s the wonderful Flexipass; for £32 you can buy 10 single tickets to use over a period of a month. That’s only £3.20 per trip.
All was well for the first three years.
I’d just hop on and buy a Flexipass from the conductor when he or she came down the train. It worked fine.
And then, a few years back, the First Group won the contract to run the service. And they started to make it a lot more difficult to buy Flexipasses.
They were programmed into the conductors’ machines and you could buy them from the conductor anywhere in the UK — apart from the Highlands. I once bought a Fearn to Inverness Flexipass on Wessex Rail in Cornwall!
But in the Highlands, First Scotrail adopted a policy of “can’t sell, won’t sell”. Conductors were disciplined if they sold Flexipasses on the train. Why? Well, probably because where the conductor sells you a ticket he or she is entitled to a cut of the ticket value.
The rule was that the conductor would sell you a full-price ticket on the train and you could exchange it for a Flexipass at the station, provided you did so the same day.
That was my problem. My day job (no, this isn’t it!) was on the outskirts of town. If I queued for tickets in the morning I was late getting to work. So I used to queue for tickets in the evening instead, leaving work early to get to the station half-an-hour before the train was due to leave.
However, a couple of times I got stuck behind assorted backpackers who were looking for information on every route known to man and, stuck in the ticket office queue, I simply had to watch as my train left without me.
Which left a significant problem. At that time the 5.30 train was the last train home. There was no bus after that either. The options were to stay the night in Inverness or get himself to do a 70-mile round trip to pick me up.
The second time it happened I thought, “enough”. And for the next five years I travelled by car.
Well, last week I started a new day job and — hallelujah — my work base is in town. If need be I can get to the station to buy a Flexipass during my lunch hour, so I’m able to get the train once more.
It takes slightly longer than driving and it doesn’t get you door-to-door. But it’s a far more relaxed and civilised way to get to work in the mornings.
No getting stuck in long queues of traffic going at 30 miles an hour from about Alness onward. No white van drivers doing dodgy overtaking. No queues on the Kessock Bridge. No need to concentrate or think, if you don’t choose to.
Instead I have an hour each way where I can do what I like. I can relax, read, knit, chat to fellow passengers, sleep or work depending on how I feel. In fact, I’m writing this column on the train this morning.
My new job is a secondment, so I’ll be back to my old work base next year. Until then I’m getting the train while I can.
After that? We’ll see.
Things have changed a little. First Scotrail is no more customer-friendly for those of us getting on at unmanned stations but at least there’s both an earlier and a later train these days, though the late one’s not until after nine o’clock.
In the meantime I’m enjoying being back on the train.
