5 ms·

Re infrastructure, my worst memories involve commuting between Oxford and London (a major rail route in the grand scheme of things) and it breaking down a few t

Re infrastructure, my worst memories involve commuting between Oxford and London (a major rail route in the grand scheme of things) and it breaking down a few times a month, especially in winter, due to “signalling failures”. It turns out rail signals were controlled by buried cables without adequate insulation, so when it was wet they literally stopped working. And yes, this was 21st century, not steam trains.

Y_Y 5y ago
Alas this seems to be best served by bus nowadays. The buses are comfortable and cheap, and connect several places in Oxford to Victoria coach station.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  There are nice, fast trains from Paddington to the West, including Oxford.
- chalst 5y ago
  My experience of road travel in the south was that delays were too frequent for journeys crossing the M25 for me to depend on it. That's from before good consumer traffic analysis apps; maybe those improve things enough.
- Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
  Cheap, certainly. Also slow, and comfortable's in the eye of the beholder (I can't read in a road vehicle, so not for me). The Paddington services are much better these days, and there's also the excellent (new) Marylebone service. I live just outside Oxford and wouldn't dream of getting the bus.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Actually the Oxford to London bus services have been shutting down because of falling passenger numbers and traffic congestion. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-50992888 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-50992888
  - yrro 5y ago
    A lot of those passengers went over to Stagecoach's competing Oxford Tube service, which served a couple of different stops within London, but (in my experience) offered a much more frequent service.
petepete 5y ago
Until lockdown I commuted to Manchester on the Rochdale line in Leyland-branded Pacers[0]. Trains with an intended lifespan of "no more than twenty years", that are now 35-40 years old. The tickets cost £100 per month and in the years I did it, only managed to find a seat on a handful of occasions. I had to wait at the station because the train was too full more frequently than finding a seat - often they'd show up with only two carriages. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacer_(British_Rail) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacer_(British_Rail)
- madaxe_again 5y ago
  £100 a month? It’s £200 return for a day for Bristol to London - and that’s if the train gets you there, and doesn’t dump you somewhere outside of Chippenham because it’s the wrong kind of sunny today and the rails have buckled, or it’s cold and the rails have frozen, or it’s raining and the train is poorly with diesel cholera. All of these are acts of god, of course, so aren’t compensatable events.
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    There’s also “leaves on the track”, my personal favourite. Sometimes I struggle to believe trains were invented in the UK!
    - cosmodisk 5y ago
      This one,albeit sounding funny,is a pretty serious issue: leaves get crushed under the weight of a train and eventually form a teflon like film on the tracks, which makes it very slippery. Not an expert in this area,so no idea how it's dealt with in various countries. My favourite is: the carriage is deflated. People couldn't stop laughing when told so, but what it meant in reality is that the support cushions deflated and the carriage can't have passengers on board.
      - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
        Most systems with wet leaf problems use sand dispensers for added traction.
chalst 5y ago
Indeed. At the time of privatisation, I commuted to Oxford from a small village that was 20 min train ride away. Privatisation encouraged me to make the switch to the 45 minute cycle ride, which I suppose was good for me. I do remember seeing the automated departures table being 80% filled with notices of cancelled services or trains that were over an hour late.
Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
> It turns out rail signals were controlled by buried cables without adequate insulation, so when it was wet they literally stopped working More than that: buried cables without adequate insulation and nobody knew where they were buried. Railtrack (the unlamented privatised company that originally took on the railway infrastructure) threw out the engineering diagrams. So when the time came to dig up the Great Western Main Line out of London for electrification, signalling failures were a routine occurrence because someone had put an excavator through a signalling cable... again.
AdmiralGinge 5y ago
It's even worse in the other direction; I used to go from Oxford to Aberystwyth quite often and Arriva Wales were truly appalling. They only ever ran two carriages for part of the route despite Aberystwyth being a university town so even when the Biblical unreliability of the trains wasn't a factor you were inevitably crammed in like cattle for the slaughterhouse. I've heard things are a bit better now Transport for Wales has taken over. Beeching's axe really did a number on Wales, the country is effectively cut in half by rail and travel between North Wales and Cardiff takes a massive 3+ hour detour across the border to Shrewsbury. Reversing some of his cuts and reopening the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen line has been seriously talked about in recent years and I think it would be a very good idea. Beeching's cuts were extraordinarily myopic and allegedly the government of the day was in bed with road haulage companies who had an interest in hurting the railways. At any rate I hope his route to the afterlife involved a tediously indirect detour via limbo and purgatory!

Y_Y 5y ago

Alas this seems to be best served by bus nowadays. The buses are comfortable and cheap, and connect several places in Oxford to Victoria coach station.

mytailorisrich 5y ago
There are nice, fast trains from Paddington to the West, including Oxford.
chalst 5y ago
My experience of road travel in the south was that delays were too frequent for journeys crossing the M25 for me to depend on it. That's from before good consumer traffic analysis apps; maybe those improve things enough.
Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
Cheap, certainly. Also slow, and comfortable's in the eye of the beholder (I can't read in a road vehicle, so not for me). The Paddington services are much better these days, and there's also the excellent (new) Marylebone service. I live just outside Oxford and wouldn't dream of getting the bus.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Actually the Oxford to London bus services have been shutting down because of falling passenger numbers and traffic congestion. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-50992888 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-50992888
- yrro 5y ago
  A lot of those passengers went over to Stagecoach's competing Oxford Tube service, which served a couple of different stops within London, but (in my experience) offered a much more frequent service.

petepete 5y ago

Until lockdown I commuted to Manchester on the Rochdale line in Leyland-branded Pacers[0]. Trains with an intended lifespan of "no more than twenty years", that are now 35-40 years old. The tickets cost £100 per month and in the years I did it, only managed to find a seat on a handful of occasions. I had to wait at the station because the train was too full more frequently than finding a seat - often they'd show up with only two carriages. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacer_(British_Rail) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacer_(British_Rail)

madaxe_again 5y ago
£100 a month? It’s £200 return for a day for Bristol to London - and that’s if the train gets you there, and doesn’t dump you somewhere outside of Chippenham because it’s the wrong kind of sunny today and the rails have buckled, or it’s cold and the rails have frozen, or it’s raining and the train is poorly with diesel cholera. All of these are acts of god, of course, so aren’t compensatable events.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  There’s also “leaves on the track”, my personal favourite. Sometimes I struggle to believe trains were invented in the UK!
  - cosmodisk 5y ago
    This one,albeit sounding funny,is a pretty serious issue: leaves get crushed under the weight of a train and eventually form a teflon like film on the tracks, which makes it very slippery. Not an expert in this area,so no idea how it's dealt with in various countries. My favourite is: the carriage is deflated. People couldn't stop laughing when told so, but what it meant in reality is that the support cushions deflated and the carriage can't have passengers on board.
    - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
      Most systems with wet leaf problems use sand dispensers for added traction.

chalst 5y ago

Indeed. At the time of privatisation, I commuted to Oxford from a small village that was 20 min train ride away. Privatisation encouraged me to make the switch to the 45 minute cycle ride, which I suppose was good for me. I do remember seeing the automated departures table being 80% filled with notices of cancelled services or trains that were over an hour late.

Doctor_Fegg 5y ago

> It turns out rail signals were controlled by buried cables without adequate insulation, so when it was wet they literally stopped working More than that: buried cables without adequate insulation and nobody knew where they were buried. Railtrack (the unlamented privatised company that originally took on the railway infrastructure) threw out the engineering diagrams. So when the time came to dig up the Great Western Main Line out of London for electrification, signalling failures were a routine occurrence because someone had put an excavator through a signalling cable... again.

AdmiralGinge 5y ago

It's even worse in the other direction; I used to go from Oxford to Aberystwyth quite often and Arriva Wales were truly appalling. They only ever ran two carriages for part of the route despite Aberystwyth being a university town so even when the Biblical unreliability of the trains wasn't a factor you were inevitably crammed in like cattle for the slaughterhouse. I've heard things are a bit better now Transport for Wales has taken over. Beeching's axe really did a number on Wales, the country is effectively cut in half by rail and travel between North Wales and Cardiff takes a massive 3+ hour detour across the border to Shrewsbury. Reversing some of his cuts and reopening the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen line has been seriously talked about in recent years and I think it would be a very good idea. Beeching's cuts were extraordinarily myopic and allegedly the government of the day was in bed with road haulage companies who had an interest in hurting the railways. At any rate I hope his route to the afterlife involved a tediously indirect detour via limbo and purgatory!