DAMON COX spends his working week on trains, but spends a summer Saturday on three routes that take him from Woking to Gatwick Airport with some tight squeezes, back doubles and some irritating rattles
On Friday 16 July 2017, nearly 27 years after I was born, my parents decided to finally get married. That evening, they boarded an orange aeroplane for a week’s honeymoon on the Isle of Man. The following Saturday they were returning, so I decided to surprise them at the airport.
Depending on the terminal, Heathrow is a mere 25 to 40min from Woking on National Express’s Railair 701 coach, but they were landing at Gatwick, at 13.05. The logical thing for me to do would have been to whip out the rail staff ‘priv’ card. Leaving Woking at 11.55, I would arrive at Gatwick less than hour later and still have time to spare to hop across to the North Terminal on the inter-terminal shuttle.
You may be thinking I am about to relate a story about an unexpected rail replacement bus experience, but when the day job involves spending all day on the rails, I thought I would have a day off them…and spend three times as long on buses instead. A sort of anti-busman’s holiday if you will.
I arrive at Woking railway station…
