I think the coach/train argument can very much depend on the journey you are wanting to make. I travelled via National Express Coach up to London Victoria yesterday, and back to Poole in Dorset today for the princely sum of £10 return. The equivalent train journey would have cost somewhere in the range £45-£69.40 (depending on the type of ticket), and in terms of time, would have only saved me between 30 and 45 minutes each way. I’m sure someone will be along any minute now to offer the ‘Horror Of My 25 Mile/72 Hour Coach Nightmare’ story, but it worked fine for me!
Virgin actually operate two different companies - the West Coast Main Line, which nowadays puts in pretty good performance, and CrossCountry, which doesn’t. The latter, which is all the ones that go strange routes via Birmingham, is a huge timetabling problem, because it has to slot into all the other main line timetables. One single delay on the East Coast, or on the Pennine routes, or at Birmingham New Street, can cause delays to all sorts of CrossCountry services. (Not an excuse, but an explanation.)
Its the accent. 
But seriously, I have nothing against Brummies (there’s a dirty joke in there, I know there is!), its just that the ex (who’s in Edinburgh) and I met whilst we were undergrads, he went off to Edinburgh to do his PhD, and I went to Birmingham.
As for the current SO, I met him at a LonDope. Its just the way things have worked out. I don’t have anything against Brummies, I’ve just never had opportunity/inclination to date one.
Sqwerticus, in my experience, whilst National Express is cheap, it takes forever. I recall doing a trip from Burnley (near Manchester) to London on the coach. It took 6-ish hours, and cost ~£20 . It takes approximately 2.5 hours on the train, and costs ~£35. You pay your money and take your choice, I guess. And route probably plays a huge part.
I do have the world’s worst travel travel agent: Me. If it weren’t for the kindness of dopers, I would spend most of my vacation living out of a locker in Heathrow. Thank you all, especially GorillaMan and Owlstretchingtime (what a dashing username).
It looks like the tubes in London, car hire to Minehead, then winging it to choose between coaches or train seems like an affordable plan. I was worried that I had to either commit to a railpass or get stranded like a lost puppy.
I don’t have family in Shenfield, but I will be staying with an friend. The town looks very pleasant and exotic to Detroit eyes. Even the public transport sounds cleaner and more reliable then our local choices.
I was planning on touring England next year and was wondering what was up with the recent train riots? The news over here didn’t explain the who or the why behind it. Is this a very localized event?
What train riots? I have never heard of this at all. Could you give us some more details?
OK, so I’ll admit I was being a bit ignorant about Shenfield, I’ve googled it and it doesn’t look that bad. Trouble is, I’m used to it being preceded by the words “due to a signal failure at…”
Things to see in Essex
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Colchester (30 mins further on the train from Shenfield). It was a major Roman town (sacked by Boudica), and has and excellent museum in its fairly-interesting castle.
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Kelvedon Hatch nuclear bunker: a cold-war relic, intended partly for use by the government in the case of war, now a museum
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Harwich. This one’s specifically for 'Merkins - it’s where the Mayflower was built.
Huh?! I’ve no idea what you’re talking about!
You’ve forgotten Frinton!
You know the old saying , Harwich for the Continent , Frinton for the incontinent .
Agreed; it really depends on the route; if you happen to be travelling between two city centres (that also happen to correspond with primary nodes on the National Express network), it can be a quite efficient method of travel, otherwise you may have to sit through a number of stops and/or make connections on the way.
The area around Minehead is nice too. I’d recommend a trip to Porlock (home of the infamous “man from Porlock” of Coleridge fame). It a very pretty little town and very much a relic of a miss Marple type England.
I still want to know about the train riots.
Me too! (I Googled, and found train riots in Rio, South Africa and India, and in Victorian England and America…)
There have been occasions when I would have been perfectly happy to riot over our trains.
Ooh someone please tell about the train riots! Enquring minds…
Yes, you were reminiscing about the old Football Specials in the Premier League thread…
It’s not called the Inter City Firm for nothing you know
‘Let the train take the pain’ 
Still no news of the Great British Train Riots. Come on** Magiver** give us more details. Perhaps he works for National Express and this was industrial sabotage, giving the railways a bad name.
Sorry for the delay, I’ve been busy. And let me preface my question by saying I did not intend to impugn the railways of GB (which I’m looking forward to traveling on because there are no passenger trains in my local). After rereading the article I can’t tell how many people were involved so “riot” may be an inappropriate term. 5 people were arrested in the event. It doesn’t say if it was a gang of 5 or only 5 were caught.
What I was referring to was an article entitled Gang Terror on Train that talked about “a” gang and multiple events. The Attacks occured in the Gravesend and Northfleet area and also the Northfleet Kent Station. According to the article there is a 31.5 % increase in criminal damage on the railway system.
A related article entitled Tube touts ‘attacking and threatening staff’ talked about “Ticket Touts” threatening Tube staff members which I assume refers to the subway. Not sure what a “Tout” is or a “Travelcard” but somehow they can make money reselling these cards.
If none of the Britts on this board have heard about it then it can’t be much of an event. The increase in criminal damage on the railway system made me curious enough to ask about it because I would certainly be using them to get around. I’m not sure where I’m going at this point but it will be a historical tour of some sort. I thought about renting a narrow boat to cover part of the distance.
First of all - don’t worry!
Yep, that ‘gang terror’ story seems like a one-off, or rather, it hasn’t anything particularly to do with the railways. It’s the same kind of morons that break car wing-mirrors or smash shop windows, just for the hell of it. A small event has been made to sound much more dramatic (note that the report doesn’t mention what time of day or night it happened, or just how many passengers ‘fled in terror’).
Travelcards - all-day and all-week tickets, which cost a fair bit of money. Touts are black marketeers - they’ll scour waste bins near stations for still-valid travelcards that have been thrown away by people who don’t need them, and then sell them outside the station for less than face value. They also hang around the exits asking people for tickets they don’t need. They’re a big problem, not only because they lose the Tube money, but because the boundaries between that kind of criminal and the kind who’ll be dealing drugs or muggind people is fairly hazy. Plus, they make people feel very intimidated. In that story, it sounds like some criminal gang is trying to establish themselves in the ‘market’.
Narrowboating - excellent idea! Don’t plan on it being a way of getting from A to B, though, unless B’s nearby, or you want to spend a fortnight on board