Extreme Commuting

The BBC today has an interesting piece about so-called ‘extreme commuters’ – those who travel more than three hours a day in order to get to/from work.

As regular readers know, I’ve been doing idiot commutes on-and-off for the last twelve years. I do have periods of commute sanity (the current phase has lasted most of the last two years) but I’ve also done plenty of long commutes. My own record has been a train commute on a daily basis from either Manchester to London (and back, of course) or Bath to London. The main section of that was roughly 1.5 hours for the Bath one, or 2ish for the Manchester one, and with additional time at each end for getting door-to-door.

More recently, the two long commutes have been from Suffolk to London, and Suffolk to Luton. The London one was two-and-a-bit hours door-to-door, and the Luton one about 90 mins each way.

What interested me the most (and to some degree defuddled me) was the person commuting by car and train from Trowbridge to Hook. According to the story, that takes 2.5 hours door to door. I’m bemused, because I know that just driving that route takes between 1.25 and 1.5 hours door to door. The train journey takes longer, and also includes two changes of train. Frankly, fuck that for a game of soldiers.

I know there is the minor advantage by train that you can get some stuff done. But for me, I’d rather get in and get the stuff done in the office.

Anyway, it’s an interesting article, but as always you kind of wonder about the decisions people make, and want to know more than is covered in the piece itself.

As for me, well, I’m quite sure that at some point in the coming year I’ll do some kind of daft commute again – although from where I am now, journeys to London etc. are nowhere near as much of a struggle as they were from Norfolk and Suffolk. But there’ll be something daft to do, I’m sure.