Business class on the train?

Another musing from a Virgin Train.

During this busy holiday period, as the trains fill with travelling families enjoying their half-term break, I'm wondering if it's time for the train companies to go back to having three different classes and have a business class, like long-distance airlines do.

One or more carriages on long-distance trains would be designated business class coaches and it'd cost a premium to sit there, though not as much as first class.

These coaches would have a few soundproofed booths from which businesspeople could make calls on their mobile phones. The rest of the coach would be "quiet" with no use of mobile phones allowed, enabling businesspeople to work or read in peace.

And "quiet" would mean "quiet". So families, stag and hen parties, and other "noisy" groups wouldn't be allowed to sit in business class (unless the alternative was sitting in the corridor because the train was packed to the rafters - but business class would be "declassified" officially in these situations, as first class is).

At-seat tea and coffee would be served, but it would cost, not be free as it is in first class.

And the WiFi service would be cheaper than in standard class, but again, not free.

I wonder... will any train companies think of doing that? I would certainly pay extra to travel in those conditions.

And while they're at it, the train companies could put on a family coach too. Maybe even with space for children to play, and at-seat TVs.

Martin Leuw says "if PAYE ain't broke don't fix it"

I attended IRIS World 2010 in London yesterday and was introduced to Martin Leuw, CEO of IRIS.

Martin recently wrote a piece for The Independent, "The coalition needs to cut red-tape and fast", saying that both employment law and health and safety law need to be made simpler, because they put small businesses off hiring employees.

I couldn't agree more with that. I help look after HR at FreeAgent and while I can see why it's important to have a first aid box in the office and send several members of staff to learn first aid (my parents both owe their lives to trained first aiders), I can't see why it was necessary to buy a big shiny poster about health and safety law and Blu-Tack it up in the office. Surely it would have been enough, and far more environmentally friendly, to send round a link to the health and safety website for staff to read?

But the nub of Martin's piece, for me, is his concern about proposed plans to devolve the responsibility for running payroll to HM Revenue.

I run FreeAgent's payroll. It is my responsibility to make sure everyone takes home the right amount of money each month. I relish that. In my days in practice I saw just what a hash HM Revenue can make of things. I'm blessed if I want them getting their grubby little paws on running our payroll. And I'm sure I'm not the only payroll queen/king who feels like that.

Besides which, HM Revenue have enough to do, recovering all these billions of pounds in unpaid taxes that we keep hearing about.

So I agree with Martin on all counts. Simplify the system but don't mess with what already works! Please!

The plane or the train?

We have mixed ways of travelling between Edinburgh and London at FreeAgent. Some of the guys like to go by plane 'cos it's quicker. Others prefer the train so they can work on the journey.

I've tried both in the last couple of days. I flew to London (City Airport) yesterday evening, then after a seminar at the ICAEW this morning, I'm now on the train back home.

Why the different methods of travel? Simple. I'm going home to Carlisle which doesn't (yet?) have a passenger airport. That means I have to go home by train. And I needed to be in the office as long as possible yesterday, but be in London in time for dinner. That meant flying.

Unlike my sister (PR officer for the Vegan Society) I don't object to flying when needed. (Sorry Manda.) I prefer not to do it every week but quite happy to fly if it's the most practical way to travel for that particular journey.

Next time I go to London, I'll also be going by train, again because I'm travelling from Carlisle.

But if and when I travel between Edinburgh and London again, which method would I choose?

I have to say I think I'd plump for the plane.

I was only offline for just over an hour while the flight was airborne. I could quite happily work at the airport before the plane left (especially given I have my new company iPhone). And it meant spending less time squished into a tiny space with a bunch of random strangers :-) Also, never mind the on-train so-called quiet coach where you're not supposed to use mobiles - on the plane you physically can't use them. So writing articles and blog posts would be easier on the plane, in a quieter environment.

Perhaps it's also because there's no excitement about travelling by train any more now that I do it at least twice a week, but flying is still something of a novelty :-)

Price? Book early enough and the plane has it! My plane ticket cost me £40 (British Airways, Edinburgh to London City) and the single train ticket cost £58!

The plane's only downside is that take-off and landing do give me the blue spooks.

So all in all, definitely the plane wins!

British Airways needs a policy on big umbrellas

I'm flying from Edinburgh to London on British Airways later today.

Only staying one night, and need to get across London reasonably swiftly when I arrive, so am aiming to travel as light as I can, i.e. take just a cabin bag, no hold luggage, so I don't have to wait at baggage reclaim.

It's pouring here in Edinburgh (least it looks like pouring to this soft Southern Sassanach).

No problem, I thought, I have a big umbrella.

But that umbrella's too big to fit in my cabin bag, so will I have to check it in, I wondered?

Nothing about umbrellas on BA's website. When I searched it on the word "umbrella", I got marketing dross about "lying under a palm-fringed umbrella". I don't think there are many of those in Edinburgh. Or London.

So I rang BA's customer contact line (having found the number at the bottom of a page that took me through various website searches before it would show me a phone number).

The lady at the other end was very polite BUT she couldn't answer my question.

She said that the airport staff would be able to tell me whether:

• The umbrella would be classed as a "dangerous item", in which case I could carry it on board but would have to give it to the cabin crew to stow away during the flight, or
• The umbrella would have to be checked in.

I'm not taking the risk of having to check it in and make myself late.

Nor am I taking the risk of potentially having to surrender my umbrella at the airport. It's one thing to lose my shampoo because it's in too large a bottle. It's another to have to dump a very nice strong umbrella.

So I'll just have to get wet.

Brilliant.

UPDATE: I bought a cheap small umbrella to tuck in my cabin bag. Then saw a guy carrying a big umbrella on to the plane as hand luggage. Bother!

"The quiet coach is a myth"

Another instalment from the Not-So-Quiet-Coach on Virgin Trains.

Tonight's travel companions? A family with young children. Adults valiantly trying to keep them quiet, which is something.

Besuited man two rows ahead of me asked them to keep quiet in low but cross tones.

And then he complained to the train manager about it when she came to check the tickets. She said "We can't do anything about children in the quiet coach".

He gave her a hissed earful.

She turned away from him when it looked like he hadn't quite finished.

He grabbed his bag and stomped out of the coach.

Now I don't think that getting stroppy with the family was the approach I'd have taken. As an auntie of five I know that young children don't do quiet unless they're asleep.

But if the train manager can't / won't do anything, then as Relative Sanity quite rightly says, the quiet coach is a myth.

I don't think there's any point at all in forbidding customers to use mobile phones in here if Virgin aren't going to at least try and control noise created by other passengers.

Thankfully it doesn't cost extra to sit in here, which is something. But perhaps it should. I'd gladly pay a premium to sit in a genuinely quiet coach. And I do mean genuinely quiet. Not as it currently is.

Because it does make it very difficult to work if the environment is noisy.

Speed the day when I can afford to travel first class :-)

UPDATE: Another tweet contact has quite rightly pointed out that it can be awkward if a family's booked seats and have ended up in the quiet coach. Perhaps Virgin should add - or designate - a family coach.

UPDATE 2: I have contacted Virgin Trains customer service using the feedback form on their website, to give my feedback about the quiet coach issues I've encountered. Let's see what effect that has...

Sometimes it needs a real person

My browser of choice when I'm on my home PC is definitely Firefox.

I was using it to make a screencast a couple of weeks back and managed to lose not only the navigation bar but also the menu bar (the bit that says File, Edit, View, etc) which made life much harder.

All of a sudden navigation was well-nigh impossible and I was having to bite the bullet and use IE as my browser.

Then this afternoon I got fed up and pinged out a tweet asking if anyone knew how to fix the problem and bring back my menu bar.

Within seconds I got a reply from a friend with the answer - press Alt + F and the menu bar will temporarily reappear so that you can choose View, Menu Bar to turn it back on permanently.

Yay.

Firstly, thanks Patrick.

But there's also a lesson to learn here for customer service.

No matter how good your knowledge base, manual, website or other support documentation is, there are times when you do just want to ask a "real person", a "quick question".

This is why a phone or live chat support helpline is so valuable. Even if the answer to your question is in the support documentation, sometimes you just don't have time to wade through and find it.

And this is also why push-button helplines are a pain. Struggling through all those menus trying to work out which option you need... Oh for "press 1 to speak to a real person".

Or, even better would be, "Press 1 to speak to a real, intelligent person".

Car recovery and hire

Just back from a week's holiday in Northumberland.

Driving over there last Saturday, across a moorland road, a motorcyclist coming the other way lost control of his machine at a bend with nasty adverse camber, swerved over to the wrong side of the road - and went smack into the front of our car.

He ended up with two broken legs, a shattered pelvis, and a brand new motorbike in smithereens.

Thankfully on our side the only casualty was the car (written off). Matt and I were unhurt.

The RAC sent a local company, R S Johnson, to recover our car. The guy who turned up with the recovery truck was so friendly and helpful that we decided to also hire a car from them for the week of our holiday.

Again, great service. National car hire firms have bitten us with charges before now (like the one which charged us for a whole new bumper when all we did was knock off the rubber bumper protector). But these guys charged very reasonable fees and went out of their way to provide great service - including a lift to the station this morning to catch our train home.

In fact, all the local people we met were really helpful when they heard about our accident. The lady at the pub, the lady at the shop and at least one person in the street offered us lifts.

I love the North of England.