My first travel to work

The office of Hello Scotland is located in Drumchapel, just next to a business park and just 8 minutes walk from the Drumchapel train station. To get to Drumchapel I´ve got to take a train from Hairmyres to Glasgow Central Station and from there a second train to Drumchapel. Sometimes, I even have to take a third train, especially when I miss the second train or want to get to Drumchapel faster. It takes me about 20 minutes to walk to the train station in Hairmyres from the flat.

The whole travel takes me approx 90 minutes.... The only annoying thing about such a long travel is the early wake-up - everyday at 06:00, the latest. Which means that if I don´t want to look like a zombie at work I´ve got to go to bed at 22:30. Those of you who know me well will know how difficult this is for me sometimes! Although I´m getting pretty tired these days so that I end up going to bed even earlier sometimes :-).

To add some valuable content to this post I´ll tell you a little story about Scottish (maybe, British as well) trains. The peak trains in the morning and in the evening are pretty full at all times. I´m glad that there is an express train from Hairmyres to Glasgow at 7:45. This train does stop only at three stops so it will never get extremely filled like the others. :-) The Hairmyres train station has no shop for tickets but a ticket machine which says "No cash. Cards only." -> Well, thank you very much!

So when I came to the train station in the morning I noticed that I didn´t have a chance to buy a ticket. Starting feeling a little bit uncomfortable, I asked an old lady whether I could buy a ticket on the train. As her answer was yes, I tried to relax and ignore the masses of people waiting for the same train as I.

The great adventure part comes! The train was so full that no rail staff came close enough to me in the 30 minutes to allow me to buy the ticket! I was pretty nervous the whole time thinking about all possible scenarious of what could happen if I didn´t get a chance to buy a ticket... :-) And you can´t imagine the panic in my head when we approached the Glasgow Central Station and a monotonous voice announced: "Please keep all your tickets when leaving this train for an additional control at the station."

I left the train shaking....and let the other passengers lead me to the exit. There were four men in orange jackets at the end of the platform controlling the tickets. I took a deep breath and went straight to the-nicest-looking controller and asked him where I can buy the ticket as I couldn´t buy it on train. He waved with his hand to the other side of the plattform and told me to go to the big queue over there, to my biggest relief!

So, for all travellers to the UK. You can buy your tickets at the train station if there is such an option, on the train or from the "orange guys" before you depart or after you arrive. There is almost no chance to travel by train without having to buy a ticket at some point.

Great! So much for the lovely stressful first morning of mine.

P.S. The travel gets easier and more enjoyable everyday as I discover all the secrets of rail travel and get used to the almost-running pace of travellers at the Glasgow train station. I am one of those "speedies" now, as I´ve got to catch the next train in 5 minutes which is the hell not enough when you have to go to the opposite site of the station and to the lowest level while trying to avoid bumping into other running passengers. 

The approximate distance between work and flat. The blue line is the approximate path travelled by the means of public transport.