Every morning I travel on autopilot from the tram stop to the train on platform two. I make no check but just get on, find a seat, and boot up my laptop. One day they will park the wrong train there and I will take a small trip to Bristol, Reading or Birmingham. Might be a nice day out.

Most of the solutions offered for reducing our carbon footprint are based on making our current travel more efficient. Why do we not focus more on reducing the need to travel and transport.

There is a movement to reduce the food miles that we use. Trying to source potatoes from the farm round the corner and not Spain just makes sense but our daily commute and trips across counties to see friends seem necessary. Could we concentrate more on the reduction of the need for transport and less on the reduction of the cost?

The daily commute to work is a necessary evil. I have to go to work to be at my desk so that people can see that I am there and come and talk to me. Some work needs to be done on location, if you are building widgets then you have to do it at the factory in the most part although there is a large network of home workers doing piece work. For office work then the main reasons for attending the physical office are to meet up with the people that you work with and so that those casual conversations, that make so much of the office work, can take place. How can we recreate this if people are not in the central office but are at home or in local rented office space? If a village where to have an office space for rent that you could use then the meeting other people and getting out of the home factors could be dealt with and you would not need to commute to work but you would be missing out on the casual contact with your work colleges and not just the people that you share the office with.

Instant messaging, chatrooms, blogs, microblogs and collaborative editing tools could all be employed to make sure that the information is flowing but the problems are larger than just the tools. Getting people to work together over a distance is hard. If you could make a video call to anybody in your office with just two clicks of the mouse and it was a decent quality with no straining to hear or see what is going on could this make it simpler? I am talking about a separate monitor with a full sized face on it and really good quality sound with little or no background noise or delay. Then being able to share a document instantly with the person on the other end and both edit it at the same time.

The virtual tea-break could be a concept. With proper video conference facilities or even over Instant messaging at a push, could there be a dedicated time that is just for banter. It may seem odd at first but if people have an official time put aside for it then it may make things tick over. I like the idea of separate screens for communications, allowing you to have chat's and videos open while still getting on with your day job.

These ideas are not for everybody but if they where offered more how many more people would take them up? What could you and I do to make them happen?

?CrossCountry trains have been in a process of ripping out the cafés from their trains and replacing them with a trolley service. I have tried both the tea and coffee from this new format and can say that they are starting to return to the fine standards of British Rail. I shall not be buying any more cups of brown from them. I have to say that I very rarely see any of the regulars buying any more now either.

I have never liked the idea that cutting costs as a way to improve a business. Companies have a duty to make a profit for their shareholders and assuming that the government subsidy is not going to cover the dividend then customers are seen as a "revenue stream" rather than an asset to be looked after. Spending money on improving the service will mean people are more likely to take the train and so profits will go up. Don't cut services till you have made too unpleasent to attract anybody but fix the problems that you already have. Provide trains with enough seats for everybody and some room to fit your legs in. Fix doors so that they don't close on people as they try to go through. Fix your seat reservation system so that is not always crashing and people don't have to wait at each seat. Make your high speed trains run at high speeds.

Competition should take care of this and send bad companies to the wall and let the good ones thrive but we don't have competition on the railways. With only one company covering many of the routes and the government covering any losses a bad company is making then the only competition comes from stretching out the timetables to make sure all the trains run on time, if a little slow, and make sure that you meet your targets.

Sorry for another boring train rant.

Party Coach

Friday night trains should have a party coach.

On the overnight ski train that we went to Tignes on there was a party coach that had no seats, a small bar and some music and subtle lighting. The benifit of this is that if you want to party you can head on down to the disco but if you want to sleep you can. I think that all trains in the UK should have this on Friday nights as this would move the large groups of people who are off for a weekend of parties into their own area and keep the rest of the train a little less busy for those who want to sit in peace.

Sort of the opposite of the quiet coach.

Tea Water

For a while now I have been brining my own mug and a little bottle of milk and a tea bag onto the train. I have been asking to get some hot water, which most of the staff are more than happy to give me, to make my tea. Saves me a bob or two and there is no need for all the waste. Each cup of tea you order on the train comes with a paper cup, plastic lid, three little milk cartons, a wooden stick, a couple of paper napkins and a paper bag to carry it back to your seat with.

Virgin rail manamagement have got wise to me and have now realised there is a missed oppertunity for waste going on. So now the shop staff have to fill up a little paper cup, put a lid on it and pop it in a bag. I can then empty it out of the cup and leave all the waste behind for them to deal with. It's got me baffled and the guys say that is what they have been told to do so who am I to argue.

The only thing I can think of is that it is "Health and saftey" if they fill an unknown mug with hot water then it spills on the way back to my seat, they might be somehow at fault. Hey it's my mug and I will be happy to carry it. It's solid plastic with a screw on lid is that not better than a paper cup with a pop on lid?

Tappy Tap Tap in the train

The sound of tapping keyboads on the train from Manchester to Sheffield is almost deafening. Some working, some playing, some just because they can.

Tappy Tap Tap...

Slowing down for trespassers on the line.

Just had a tannoy anouncement, saying that we are going slowly as there are possiable trespassers on the line. I say speed up and clean up the geene pool.

It was just outside Wakefield again. I think they are scared of the giant shiny metal snakes. Perhaps they are trying to free the people inside which it has eaten?