Transportation Northward

Flat K1 rose early on Saturday, September 29, though not necessarily bright and cheerful. My body is definitely not used to getting up at 6 am, plus my paranoid mind kept waking me up in fear of oversleeping my alarm (though that has never actually happened). The four of us spent an hour running around getting dressed and doing some last minute packing.

I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while Libby prepared cheese and crackers to eat on the train. The need to pack food for all trips is something I learned from my mother and a greatly appreciate the lesson. When my stomach is rumbling I like to have several food options available to me instead of paying a higher price for a bag of unhealthy crisps.

The time to leave came quickly and we left for the Headington Girls School bus stop in order to catch the Park & Ride bus because the U1, the bus we were planning on taking, does not run that early on Saturday mornings.

The streets were nearly deserted. The sky was cloudy, not yet fully lightened by the rising sun. A soft wind was blowing just hard enough to ruffle the tree leaves. Everything was quite but for our quiet foot steps and the motor of an occasional vehicle passing on the road. Early in the morning is my favorite time to be outside because it is so tranquil, however, I rarely get the pleasure of experiencing it because I do also enjoy sleeping in.

A young man rode by on the other side of the street wearing beige sports shorts and a black long sleeve shirt. Now, this normally would not be strange at all, nor would it have caught my eye, except that he was also wearing a black hood that covered his head and the lower part of his face. I don't know if his face was cold or if he simply woke up that morning and thought, "You know, I think I am going to a ninja today."

 Disembarking at Frideswide Street, we made our way into the rail station. The Oxford Rail Station is a decent sized building, probably about half the length of an American football field. It features several small food shops, including the West Cornwall Pasty Company whose logo features a grinning pirate.

Getting our BritRail passes verified was much easier than I expected. There was not a queue at the ticket counter so we went right up and the lady simply checked our passes against the information on our passports and stamped the date on them. Everything had gone according to plan with no problems, so we had about thirty minutes before our train was scheduled to leave. I am of the opinion that it is much better to arrive early for transportation and wait for bit than panicking about being late. Sitting down in hard metal chairs, we looked around, trying to force ourselves to be more awake.

If you ever have to spend some time at the Oxford Rail Station, I challenge you to find the owl statue perched inside. When I saw the statue it gave me a laugh, enjoying the touch of whimsy someone had thought to place inside the building.

At Platform 2, we boarded Coach D of a Virgin Train headed north to Birmingham. The train sported seats that were wither purple and navy splotch patterned or a vibrant orange and rust splotch pattern. The fabric reminded me of the carpeting used at the local skating rink at home that I often went to as a child. I was not expecting that half of the seats would face towards the front of the train and the other half would face towards the back. Our chosen seats faced backwards. I initially thought that this might bother me but I stopping noticing it after only a little while into the ride.

There are small shops at either end of the train where you can buy snacks, and a train employee comes around with a food cart, usually after passing a major stop where more people board. This was one of the few things that I found similar between train travel and air travel.  

Within three minutes of leaving the Oxford Station we were in the countryside. England seems to be dotted with decent sized metropolises that are completely surrounded by agricultural fields. To me, it seem that in the Eastern United States, the change from urban areas to super rural are more gradual.

Photo by Libby Bean

The fields we passed are either blanketed in green grass or the short stalks of golden beige where hay has been grown. Many had large round hay bales lying in them waiting to be collected for sale. Sheep definitely seem to be the most numerous livestock animal in the United Kingdom. You would have a very hard time fining a hillside that is not dotted with the fluffy white forms of grazing sheep.

Some of the fields held cows or horses, their rarity making them more noticeable to my eyes. The cows here differ in appearance from the ones at home (I know that they are most likely a different breed). They seem smaller with more numerous color variations. Most of the cows in North Carolina are black or a mixture of black and white. Here, all in the same herd, you can see cows that are beige, brown, black, white, or a mixture of those colors.

I observed the passing landscape for a while then, with the rising sun blazing into my eyes, I began to take notes of my experiences on the train using as many senses as possible.

I heard a man on the other side of the aisle and one row back tell my friend Amy, who was using her tablet at the time, that the train's wifi would not allow you to stream videos or music. He seemed very annoyed by this and wanted to let people know about that annoyance. I am guessing that he did not know about the restriction until he had already paid for access to the wifi. These restrictions should probably be stated on the wifi signs in each coach so people know before they pay.

The same man later bought a bag of crisps, sour cream and onion by the smell, from the food cart and proceeded to chew loudly with his mouth open. It was disgusting to listen to and I was appalled by his lack of manners. He also took a phone call where he ranted, once more, to the person on the other end about not being able to use Youtube on the train.

The train ride was relatively smooth with minor vibration from the engines. The vibrations traveled from my feet to echo strongly within my chest cavity. After some time on the train the throbbing of the engines caused a subtle tingling in my lips and tongue. Luckily, I remembered to take motion sickness medicine before we left that morning so I had not problems with that on the ride.

Pulling into the Birmingham where we needed to transfer trains, the skyline is more modern than most English cities I have seen so far. A large number of the buildings are tall with more straight, rectangular features. Bricks, steel, glass and concrete dominate the visible landscape. Some of the buildings looked familiar to me since we passed Birmingham in the coach on the way to Ironbridge.

We had thirty minutes until our connection to Edinburgh left so we looked around in a small convenience store. The most surprising part of the rail station was that you have to pay 30 pence to use the Ladies room. This is quite a foreign concept to me but I bet the rail station makes quite a lot of money off it. I decided to save my 30 pence and wait until we boarded the train again.

The toilets on the Virgin Trains are very cool. They seem a little futuristic, like Star Trek. The doors are red and curved, large enough to allow a wheelchair to enter. To open the door you press a yellow button and it slides open. The room itself is quite large because it has to be able to accommodate a wheelchair. Once inside you press the "close" button, making sure once it is shut that you also remember to press the "door lock" button as well. Otherwise, someone could come and open the door while you are doing your business, and not be able to close the door again until it has opened fully. That would be incredibly embarrassing. When I washed my hands I found the sink water was scaldingly hot. It felt like I was being burned just for trying to get all of the soap off of my hands.

Though we expected it to be late, our train did arrive in Edinburgh on time at 2:27 pm. From there our adventure in Scotland began.