Why travelling by train is not for me

As a nation we are encouraged to leave out cars behind and use public transport.

But I think that, despite the rising cost of petrol, I will continue to drive to Bath and back every day rather than face the prospect of getting the dreaded train.

Now, me and trains do not mix.

The first hurdle I have to overcome is getting to the right station.

This I do not usually fail too badly at, but when I do, I do it in style.

One such incident, where I managed to get two Hatton stations mixed up, has gone down in family history, and the tale is often recounted with great hilarity.

I was trying to get to Hatton in Derby, and didn’t realise that the station was in fact called Tutbury and Hatton.

The result? I merrily caught a train to Hatton station (which I later found out is in Warwickshire) and spent the whole day on trains trying to get home.

This might go some way to explaining why I am not a fan of trains, and so when my car breaks (which can be quite a frequent occurrence) and I am forced to take the train I feel a little nervous.

And it is not the fear of where I will end up that gets me, it is the fear of who I will end up sitting next to.

I always seem to meet the most interesting characters on my train journey.

These quirky, somewhat strange people seem to be attracted to me, and feel the need to talk to me.

Like the man who catches the early morning train, and sits drinking vodka out of a plastic water bottle.

I politely declined his offer of a sip of his ‘special water’ at 7am!

Then there was the man who thrust his head into my face while I was avidly reading my book to ask me to smell his hair.

It turned out he had used a new shampoo made from ‘products from the jungle’, and he wanted my opinion.

This I also politely declined, and have never felt so relieved as I did when the train arrived at my station.

But the funniest had to be the man who had travelled to Bath to buy a new telescope, and was keen to give me a 30 minute lesson on the stars and planets.

To illustrate his point he used a rolled up magazine as a telescope, in place of the real one he had failed to buy.

Also train travelling has the added danger of me getting stuck in the doors, falling off my seat when the train suddenly starts moving, and locking myself in the toilets, all of which has happened.

Life is dangerous for me at the best of times, having no coordination and limited common sense, but throw a train journey into my daily life and things get worse!

So I think I will stick to driving whenever I can, it just about wins as the safer option.