High Speed = High Price

Last couple of days of the holidays before returning to work and so the gf and I had to pop along to the train station to buy our season tickets for the next year. But first there was the decision of exactly which ticket to buy…

Southeastern introduced their High Speed service last month, which cuts down journey times into London. Well it does if you live down on the Kent coast or in Ashford! If you live where I do, it shaves a whole 10 minutes off the time!

Actually, that’s not quite true if you look at specific train times. On the evening trains the difference is anything between 4 and 8 minutes (yay!) but on the morning commute it varies from 9 to 18 minutes (double yay!).

Something else to factor in was the journey I have to make once I get into London. Getting the new high speed service means that I can walk to the office from St Pancreas (sic) in about 15 minutes, whereas coming into Canon Street on the (ever so slightly) slower service I’ve still got a twenty minute bus ride to put up with!

With all these factors to consider it was a tough decision, but after humming and aahing since breaking up for Christmas, I finally decided to fork out the extra money required to get the HS1 service (catchy name, huh?). That extra money, however, was £750!!!

That brought my season ticket to nearly £3,800! How much better this new service is we’ll just have to wait and see and whether the increase in price is justified. But I guess they’ve got to pay for these fancy new trains somehow, haven’t they!