As the wife is away this weekend, I decided to go and preview the 395s on my own.
At Hatfield, I asked for a ticket extension from Boundary Zone 6 to Ashford International and an HS1 supplement. She could do the first ticket, with Gold Card discount, but couldn't find the supplement. I said not to worry, I'd get it at St Pancras.
Got 1353 train to King's Cross, walked over to St Pancras at 1420 and got my supplement for £4.90 (no discount available).
Boarded 1438 train and had a walk around. A very impressive train, although it was rather annoying to be told the stopping pattern every minute! Very professional welcome message from the train manager, even introducing the name of the driver. Oddly, there was no mention of the passenger safety notices. Also, why don't we have a standard 'tone' before announcements here? The one in use is the same I've heard in Sweden - so it must be a default setting!
The train is very smooth, but not that well sound proofed so in the tunnels it's very noisy. The lighting is very well diffused and the passengers seem nice and relaxed, as if it's some sort of private club!
My only problem came when I presented my interesting ticket combination; only to be told that you can't use ticket extensions. She said they operated the same policy as Heathrow Express (she would later say they'd only just got staff privileges) and I had to buy a ticket that started at St Pancras - but I could get the Gold Card discount.
This means I have to pay the supplement (which I hope for their sake is scrapped in the coming years) AND pay again for part of a route that I've already got a ticket for.
The question is why has Southeastern decided to operate like this? I'm sorry, but impressed as I am, the train isn't that stunning. It isn't THAT fast and you get the same 'new train' feel on any other new train. Imagine if London Overground had upped its fares and introduced a supplement for the 378s!
After everything was calculated, my excess was only £1.90 anyway! I paid cash, and she sympathised and agreed with me that when it's a train full of people that aren't just out to preview the train for leisure (who may well have had a reduction of other services), she's likely to get more grief. We had a bit more banter and she carried on.
At Ebbsfleet, a family got on and the father was keen to make sure the very small children didn't put their shoes on the seats and kept the table clean - as they were eating sweets and fruit. Certainly proves the point that if you keep things looking clean, some people will make an effort to keep it that way.
A few minutes later, the TM came back and asked if she'd left her keys with me. I said she'd only put down her credit card machine and she concluded she'd probably left them in the cab. She then walked off and left her ticket machine (which she came back for soon after!). Again, everyone laughed and saw the funny side. I can see why staff enjoy working these trains - at least for now!
When we arrived at Ashford, I got off and then realised it was the same train going back. So I never left the train!! A guy came on to clean up, and I walked down the other end to be near the gateline at St Pancras. Now for some reason, the train left a minute late (and I later found that we were 2 minutes down most of the way back). Not sure why, but no matter. Of course, thanks to padding, the train arrived 1 minute early!
I popped into the toilet soon after the train left Ashford and found nobody had cleaned in there, and it was quite messy with toilet paper all over the floor. A bit of a disappointment to an otherwise interesting trip - that was complete in little over an hour. Got back to get the 1606 train home. So, I had gone from Hatfield to Ashford International
AND back in just over 2.5 hours!
So, while the train may not be going that amazingly fast (not so to justify the extra cost), the direct route really
does make Kent incredibly accessible. The staff also seem (as confirmed before here) to be very happy and friendly - and extremely professional. Long may it continue to be the case.
Finally, here's how my ticketing ended up!!:
(One thing, shouldn't my ticket extension (top two) have said NOT HS1 to make things clearer?)
