Kids on Trains...
Kids on Trains...
Following up on my last posting, I would like to talk about kids on trains... Maybe it is my romantic view of train travel, that of transversing broad expansive panoramas of untamed riches being pulled by hefty locomotives and sitting in the lap of relative luxury... I remember traveling by streetcar with my grandmother every Christmas to downtown Los Angeles to do my shopping... I remember the sight of the train at Knott's Berry Farm and the great, classic interiors... I remember the trains passing along the back side of our house on Phlox Street pulling their strings of boxcars and flatcars... I remember the trains of over 100 cars that would pass us as we traveled to Fresno to visit family... I dream of train travel being one way of crossing new lands to reach exotic destinations...
ENTER REALITY... We had decided to take a day trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, while in England on this trip. We booked the train before leaving home and we opted for 'second' class rather than traveling 'first' class as we would do in Germany; what a mistake! The reason? Families traveling with KIDS on holiday... It was a miserable experience.
While the trip north was not uncomfortable in the newer coach that we were on, the trip back was quite uncomfortable. In the former case, there was a place to store my walker while in the latter case I had to leave it in the 'Entry/Exit' area... The comfort of the seats were also different, with the new coach having 'fold away' armrests while the older coach did not... But it was the KIDS that made 'second' class travel so miserable...
On the way north, we had a family sitting around a table next to us... This included a 'Dudley Dursley' type of character who was 'squirrelly' and just plain obnoxious. He was listening to his MP3 player, but when he wanted something, he would shout instead of talk because he couldn't hear how loud he was... Plus, he was constantly changing seats, hitting his brother, etc. This went on for four hours! The parents didn't discipline him; if they told him to stop doing something, he went right on doing it...
On the way back south, there were numerous families sitting around us with kids. Some of them were borderline 'bad', but one mother and her son and daughter were just terrible. The kids hit, kicked, bit, and otherwise abused the mother and she did nothing to stop it or to discipline them for such misbehavior... In addition to rather constant screaming, she let them run and play in the aisles without restraint!
Finally, I had enough of this and the uncomfortable seat so I went into the entry/exit area, where my walker was positioned, and sat there for the rest of the trip... It was cold, drafty, lonely, and generally uncomfortable. When I asked to porter about getting changed to the handicapped area, I was told that that was not possible unless I had requested that before starting! I ended up with a miserable headache and subsequent head and chest cold for the remainder of our holiday. I'm writing to the train company with a complaint...
On to more happy tails in the next installment...
Following up on my last posting, I would like to talk about kids on trains... Maybe it is my romantic view of train travel, that of transversing broad expansive panoramas of untamed riches being pulled by hefty locomotives and sitting in the lap of relative luxury... I remember traveling by streetcar with my grandmother every Christmas to downtown Los Angeles to do my shopping... I remember the sight of the train at Knott's Berry Farm and the great, classic interiors... I remember the trains passing along the back side of our house on Phlox Street pulling their strings of boxcars and flatcars... I remember the trains of over 100 cars that would pass us as we traveled to Fresno to visit family... I dream of train travel being one way of crossing new lands to reach exotic destinations...
ENTER REALITY... We had decided to take a day trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, while in England on this trip. We booked the train before leaving home and we opted for 'second' class rather than traveling 'first' class as we would do in Germany; what a mistake! The reason? Families traveling with KIDS on holiday... It was a miserable experience.
While the trip north was not uncomfortable in the newer coach that we were on, the trip back was quite uncomfortable. In the former case, there was a place to store my walker while in the latter case I had to leave it in the 'Entry/Exit' area... The comfort of the seats were also different, with the new coach having 'fold away' armrests while the older coach did not... But it was the KIDS that made 'second' class travel so miserable...
On the way north, we had a family sitting around a table next to us... This included a 'Dudley Dursley' type of character who was 'squirrelly' and just plain obnoxious. He was listening to his MP3 player, but when he wanted something, he would shout instead of talk because he couldn't hear how loud he was... Plus, he was constantly changing seats, hitting his brother, etc. This went on for four hours! The parents didn't discipline him; if they told him to stop doing something, he went right on doing it...
On the way back south, there were numerous families sitting around us with kids. Some of them were borderline 'bad', but one mother and her son and daughter were just terrible. The kids hit, kicked, bit, and otherwise abused the mother and she did nothing to stop it or to discipline them for such misbehavior... In addition to rather constant screaming, she let them run and play in the aisles without restraint!
Finally, I had enough of this and the uncomfortable seat so I went into the entry/exit area, where my walker was positioned, and sat there for the rest of the trip... It was cold, drafty, lonely, and generally uncomfortable. When I asked to porter about getting changed to the handicapped area, I was told that that was not possible unless I had requested that before starting! I ended up with a miserable headache and subsequent head and chest cold for the remainder of our holiday. I'm writing to the train company with a complaint...
On to more happy tails in the next installment...
posted by Gerald Boerner's Blog at 8:49 PM
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