Debating whether I could cope with a soton-london commute prob 1.5hrs each way 4-5 days a week. Anyone else do a similar distance?

Was thinking of getting an iphone to keep me entertained – presume you get decent enough signal on the train to browse the net and stuff

Season ticket appears to be in the region of £5k which is a fair chunk too.

I travel to london one day a week on a line that takes about 2hrs each way. I use a MiFi dongle with an android pad for browsing and Media Monkey to synchronise a load of BBC radio podcasts. Seems to pass the time. That and sleep.

Sleeping of course is a good option too 🙂

I’m asking myself if it’s worth the extra pay (in the region of double) for 3-4 years to clear the mortgage.

Not much social life I imagine

Mrs S and I worked in London for a number of years, Made a chunk of capital and now dont have to slave for sufficient income.

BUT

we never commuted, we lived in London, but didnt spunk our money up the wall.

Ive seen so many hollowed out families where the key earner commutes long hours on each end of long days.

We left London. Its the only way of converting the capital youve earned into a relaxing future life, otherwise you’re just on a very expensive treadmill.

It’s taking me 2 hours each way to get to work some days at the moment because of the snow we have had and buses, heavy traffic, numpty drivers, and it’s hell. I’m tired all the time and have NO time to do anything else during the week. And I don’t have kids to worry about. I wouldn’t do it by choice ! And that 1.30 hours will stretch if anything goes worng with the system, which of course never happens. If you can afford it stay at a B & B a couple of nights a week or with friends.

Due to weather I’m using the train, it takes 14 minutes but even that is tedious

I see the hollow empty faces of people getting on and off the train everyday, and none of them look happy.
I used to go to london one day a week for a college. Leave house 6am, get back home 7.30/8ish. It wasn’t fun.

Check the train times carefully as you might find that you need to get a train silly early to get where you wanna go, and don’t forget the tube. Tubes at peak time are hell. I regularly go to Old Street and its not enjoyable at all.

It’s not going to be great, but if it’s for a couple of years to clear the morgage then the effort is worth the reward… imo of course.

Do they do flexi time, or anything like that, so a few days a week you work longer days and then that means a few times a week you get the evning with other half / kids

I leave the house at 6:20 and don’t get back until 7 and yes it is hard, but there is still time to do stuff like go to the cinema in the evenings amongst other stuff.

I’ve been doing the south-east into London (Hastings line) for about 10 years. When I started my station was just over an hour into London Bridge and then another short connecting train to Cannon St. Now I cycle to stations further up the line so my time on the train varies from an hour to 20 minutes.

To be honest this time of year you’re going to get a lot more negative replies than had you asked in summer. The trains on my part of the network are FAR more reliable now than they were 10 years ago but in the bad weather service can be atrocious – something to bear in mind. One thing doing 1.5 hours each way but when it’s snowy / icy / too wet etc this could be 4/5 hours + which completely knackers your day. IN the bad weather at the beginning of Dec Southeastern were completely useless – lied on the site, mislead people, canceled services arbitrarily etc etc. And if you’re a season ticket holder you can forget getting compensation for this bad service (unlike daily / weekly ticket holders)

It’s not so bad when I’ve got the bike because worst case scenario I could always ride home from London – I’ve a young family and my wife lived in fear of me getting stuck in London and not being about when the girls were babies. When the weather comes in you can find yourself checking the rail company websites an awful lot – I’m lucky in that I lead my team and can also work from home so fortunate enough to be able to just leave the office and head home if things are starting to be canceled / delayed. Nice not to have to ask permission / worry about upsetting people if I leave early.

As someone ^^ mentioned – it’s also worth checking the times the trains start in your neck of the woods. I have to get into London for 6:30 to cover the early shift and trains don’t actually go through my village to get me into the office for that time, from further down the line the first train up can be much later. I have to cycle at least 6 miles to get a service that gets me into London on time. To get in properly early it can mean that I’m getting up at 3:45am. Admittedly on these days I can be home for 5:30 but the early mornings can catch up on you.

As far as entertaining yourself on the train goes – a laptop / netbook can be handy for catching up on dvds etc. I used to record tv on my mac and then copy these over onto my iBook to watch in the mornings. At the moment I just tend to read, plan things for work or sleep! You get used to the journey easily enough. On the later trains coming home there are a fair amount of groups of friends who to the longer commutes – they play cards, drink ale etc and generally enjoy themselves. It’s not
all bad…

Mind you – when I joined the company I’m with now, my old boss used to commute into the office from Hammersmith. Door-to-door it actually took him longer by bus and tube to get into the city than it did me to get in from Sussex. And faced with an air-conditioned train in the summer vs. sweaty tube or bus I know which was the more pleasant journey…

Woffle – surely it’s worth walking London Bridge to Cannon St.?! 10mins tops!