How to take a Train from Paddington Station, UK

continued from Paris & UK Trip part 4.....

Sorry for the pictures, as it was too hectic that I forgot to take pictures on that day.

At the end day 4 of our trip, we took a long distance train from Paddington Station to Oxford. It was hectic. First, walking to Paddington Station took much longer time than we anticipated, and we arrived just 15-20 minutes before the train scheduled departure.

Picture taken from http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/sjp/PAD/objectvalues/2702-0000377.html

Second, I had booked our tickets via Western website but this required me to redeem my ticket from the machines at Paddington Station, and somehow the first few tries failed. When I finally retrieved the tickets, I got 6 tickets instead of just 2 – two tickets, two receipts and two blank tickets.

Picture taken from http://glitterpissing.blogspot.com/2010/11/uk-trip-day-8-return-to-states.html

Looking at the tickets, our confusions just piled higher and higher so we queued up at the customer service counter to ask which platform we’re supposed to go. Their explanation was simple – look at the announcement board and we’ll be able to know which platform we’re supposed to go. Sounds easy right? But it didn’t end there. There’s no train to Oxford on the board!

Picture taken from http://www.walesonline.co.uk

Let me explain in this scenario. If we’re taking KTM train from KL Sentral to Kajang, we know we need to look for the train to Seremban. The final station is ALWAYS Seremban. It’s just that we disembark in the midway at Kajang.

Such was not the case with trains in UK. Eventhough travelling at the same direction, using the same railway, the final destination is constantly different. Imagine you’re taking KTM from KL Sentral to Kajang again, the train you’re looking for, could be written “to Seremban”, “to Bangi”, “To Serdang” or anywhere between the line! If the train is designated to final stop at Station B, you can never reach your destination at Station C.

Left with only a few minutes before departure, we asked the customer service again and were given the platform number. The train was long and our coach was near to the end, so you can imagine how fast we need to run! (Tips : We later learned that the easiest way to find your train at a station, is just refer at the departure time. If your train is 7.45pm, just look at train that departs at exactly that time.)

Happy ending? Not yet. As we booked the ticket online, we assumed it’s a train with limited seats until sold out. To our surprise, the coach was full with passengers standing at the aisle. Our tickets were the only thing that saved us from standing for the 1 hour plus ride. There were small paper slips on seat, which means they were reserved for people who had prebooked the tickets (ME, ME!). Just look for the number that was on your ticket and that will be the seat for us.

Only thing is… our ticket numbers were 38 & 39 Coach D but the seat numbers were marked 38B and 39B. A staff told us this is Coach D, so did we sat at the wrong place or what?! Ultimately, we did not have the time to find out as the train was already moving. We just waited to see if anyone will come up with a ticket to claim the seats. No one turned up so I guess these were our seats, afterall.

Something funny that I should mention here. Even though no one really confronted us, but the local passangers kept looking at us in a way like “Hey, why are you sitting at my seat?” That made us even nervous and kept on doubting that we were sitting at the right place. Upon asking our friends, they told us not to bother about them. They get that looks all the time too.