Rail ticket lesson

Left London to explore another historical area, Canterbury. This post is to inform some of the down side of travelling solo with check in and carry on luggage and taking public transport. But also last night I googled the wrong Hotel and ended up on the wrong bus and at 1am there was limited services back to my hotel. I was stuck at St Pancras station, Ubers kept cancelling and so I took a London cab. I had heard they are pricey but did not expect to find out with my first mistake in London. An Uber was £5 and the cab cost me £28. That was a very expensive mistake, but, all part of travelling.

This morning was another day. Leaving the Park Plaza Hotel in West London there is a ramp up under the Western Road and up to Park Royal Station. This station is not step free access. So I had prepared myself to have to carry my luggage, luckily down a set of stairs. But Londoners are very kind and there was a lovely young man who helped me with my luggage.

The train wasn’t too difficult to manage as most of the London trains do not have a large gap between the train and platform. If there is, most platforms have accessible access where they have raised a portion of platform to meet the train entrance without a gap. I took the tube from Park Royal to Kings Cross St Pancras station, walked to nearby St Pancras international station, took a lift up to Platform 12. Signage is very clear at all stations. The trip was to take 2 hours so luckily there are toilets at St Pancras and as there are 4 steps up to those, I rolled my luggage into the accessible toilet.

I have registered my credit card to be used as an Oyster card. The London equivalent of the Sydney Opal Card. So at St Pancras International I swiped my card. Normally TfL works out your daily spend on the proxy Oyster card and there is a cap each day. However, the UK has several train lines which are not linked to the Oyster card. The fast train on the South Western Rail Line (SWR) is separate. Now this is one of the lines where if you book your ticket in advance you can save a lot of money. I did not know this and I paid £37 one way. The conductor was very kind to explain how it all works and assisted me to download two more apps – Trainline and National Rail. I paid the £37 and an additional £5 for a return ticket to London which is valid for a month. Once I leave Canterbury I will have to go back to London regardless so that I can get a train to the next major city. Their ticketing is so complex. The conductor who has been on this job for 12 months said he was still learning all there was to the UK rail system.