More debates among politicians in the UK about how we persuade the Great British Public that their love affair with air travel must come to an end. One way is with the carrot of greatly increased taxes, but no government is going to do that (unless possibly in the immediate aftermath of a very successful general election). The alternative is the carrot of making alternative transport methods more attractive.

I used to be a fairly regular business traveller from Edinburgh to London, but then a few years ago the train operator changed its regular traveller scheme to be much less rewarding than the airline’s … and so I stared flying. OK, it wasn’t quite as clear-cut as that, but that’s how business travellers think. Understand your market.

Anyway, being much greener these days, I decided to try the train again yesterday. A gang of us from the day job were going down from Edinburgh to London for an awards bash (something else that will go with global warming…). I decided to take the train, leaving the office at about 12:15 - not much earlier than most of my colleagues. I arrived in London at 16:55, and was at the hotel about the same time as the others.

However, what really impressed me about the train was the on-board WiFi (free in First Class - it should be). With a mobile phone, full internet access (including ssh), comfortable seats, free coffee, and four and a half hours of quality time - you can get an awful lot done.

Alas, on the return trip this morning, I couldn’t get any internet connectivity. I rang the helpdesk, and had this slightly surreal conversation:

Which train are you on?
The 8 o’clock from King’s Cross to Edinburgh
Which coach are you in?
L
Ah, the whole train is down. I’ll just get the guard to re-boot the server.

And, as you can see, this standard helpdesk response of “switch it off and on again” worked, and in time it took me to write this, I’m fifty miles or so nearer Edinburgh.

You can’t do that on a plane.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 10:52 am and is filed under Greenery, The day job. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.