East Midlands Trains use the same (trainline) booking back end as Virgin Trains without the ability to select different seats.

I managed to get a two leg split in the same seats by selecting "near toilet" and booking both in the same transaction/basket.

And vice-versa for those TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) where cash payments have been disbaled (some stations on the North Downs Line at least) where the passenger does not have a usable card, no other facilities available etc.

The zenith has been reached.

I was sat towards the front part of the middle saloon in a class 165 once on an absolutely roasting day (I was in shorts) and pulled the hopper window open adjacent to me.

As we left and the train picked up some speed (a nice breeze was coming through) a young woman in a suit came from towards the back and said in a fairly terse manner "can you shut the window". My literal response was "no" which shocked her a bit.

She then said would I mind swapping seats with her (I think her hair was getting blown about), which I agreed to. A lot of it is to do with the manner (or lack of manners) in which the objection is raised.

In any case, they were not seated when you opened the windows. Maybe if the person was sitting next to you then a quick "do you mind" would suffice, but I do not think you need to consult the entire bus.

I generally buy most of my tickets online now if the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) wont sell what I want. It is less rigmarole than trying to obtain exotic ticket(s) at the booking office.

SWT^▸ (South West Trains) TVMs do not allow a change of origin station (nor FGW^▸ (First Great Western) for that matter) which is particularly annoying as it can be done (e.g. Southern).

Interesting about the St Pancras fares, never knew they existed, may come in useful one day.

I had a look at the London U1 fares in NFM^▸ (National Fares Manual) 18. Maybe I imagined it, but off-peak day returns no longer seem to exist with that destination.

Kentish Town as a destination can also be a useful one in this scenario if e.g. Waterloo-St Pancras via tube is required (also works by selecting NR^» (Network Rail - home page) stations close to other London Termini as desired). I think that quite often works out cheaper than 2 x Oyster^▸ (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services) singles added on to a London Terminals fare.

Seems to have captured Jack Straw's imagination as well as he asked a question about this in PMQ's today!

They've gone for the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) blue livery on the 458/5's then?

I assumed they would have gone for the SWT white "mainline" livery as per the Junipers (although maybe the Junipers should have been in the blue livery themselves).

The notice would also alert a potential thief that the owner may not be likely to come back quickly.

  Hadn't thought of that one!

I did hear that yesterday there was an accident in the road tunnel to Heathrow Terminals 1, (2), 3 and people were reported to be abandoning cars. There was also gridlock reported on the surrounding roads.

Presumably the underground/heathrow express/heathrow connect would have been the only way in/out at the time. Not sure if there is any direct pedestrian access?

I had a dig in the archive for 2012, sorry about any formatting issues from the cut & paste. "Minus 1" from the dates to have a guess for 2013's one e.g. Saturday 1 December 2012 -> Saturday 30 November 2013.
Taken from: http://web.archive.org/web/20121016033205/http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/groupsave_calendar.html

*** 2012 ***
Saturday 1 December    First Great Western    All services to Bath Spa before 14:00    Bath Chritmas Market
Saturday 1 December    First Great Western    Services to Newbury or Newbury Racecourse before 13:40    Horse Racing
Saturday 1 December    First Great Western    All services to Cardiff Central before 14:00    Rugby
Friday  7 December    First Great Western    Not valid on 14:06, 15:06, 16:06, 17:03, 18:03, 19:03 London Paddington - Penzance.    

Overcrowding
Saturday 8 December    First Great Western    All services to Bath Spa before 14:00    Bath Chritmas Market
Friday  14 December    First Great Western    Not valid on 14:06, 15:06, 16:06, 17:03, 18:03, 19:03 London Paddington - Penzance.    

Overcrowding
Saturday 15 December    First Great Western    All services to Bath Spa before 14:00    Bath Chritmas Market
Friday  21 December    First Great Western    Not valid on 14:06, 15:06, 16:06, 17:03, 18:03, 19:03 London Paddington - Penzance.    

Overcrowding
Saturday 22 December    
First Great Western
   All services to Bath Spa before 14:00    Bath Chritmas Market
Friday  28 December    First Great Western    Not valid on 14:06, 15:06, 16:06, 17:03, 18:03, 19:03 London Paddington - Penzance.    

Just to add, obviously it is only with February that I encounter this. Selecting a season ticket starting for 1 month on say, the 31st of another month, will end on the 30th of the next as it has at least that number of days.

I have been playing with the FCC^▸ (First Capital Connect) season ticket calculator:

http://tickets.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk/cc/en/JourneyPlanning/SeasonMixingDeck

Selecting a start date of 30 November and selecting 3 Months' validity puts in an end date of 28 February. Yet the search results come up with an end date of 27 February.
Amending the end date to 1 March still comes up as 3 Months' validity.

Just a bit confused to how this is worked out. Take another example, a 1 month season ticket commencing on 29 January would be valid until 28 February (using -1 on the date and +1 on the month). A total of 31 days.

So a ticket starting on the 31 January should last until 2 March to be consistent?

Just to take it even more OT -

Woking to Basingstoke - 79.10 for a 7 day season, 10.70 for 1 day. So a season is effectively 7.39 times a daily peak fare in that direction.

Obviously this is down to the fact the season is bi-directional and the daily fare is priced to encourage use of the capacity coming down from London in the morning and up in the evening (the daily fare the other way round is 21.10).

Wont do much to reduce queues at TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) or ticket offices though.