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Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

173 points by edent 4y ago

petesergeant 4y ago
> the Caledonian Sleeper has to be one of the railway highlights of the UK ahh, I've really wanted to like it, but I've found it exceptionally uncomfortable each time I've used it, and also very expensive. I much prefer the sleeper trains in Thailand > Train travel in the UK can be highly scenic The UK really is very pretty. It's easy to forget when in countries with blockbuster scenery, but British countryside really is a joy to look at. EDIT: one day I'd like this to be an overnight Zeppelin route, but it's never going to happen
- gw99 4y ago
  The Caledonian sleeper is hell on earth. I did it once. The only worse experience I had was a rotten old YHA hostel in the 90s where I stayed in a bunk room with three people with bowel disorders. And it wasn’t much worse.
  - eynsham 4y ago
    Was that on the new trains?
    - gw99 4y ago
      Was 2019 so I expect so unless they replaced them since.
      - eynsham 4y ago
        Hm, the Mark 5 carriages were introduced in April and October 2019, so it could have been either just from the year.
    - petesergeant 4y ago
      I've done both, both were equally miserable tbh
    - ghaff 4y ago
      I did it in about 2019. I shared a sleeper with a friend. Yeah, the sleeper was tight and the dining car was crowded. But getting on after dinner in London and arriving in Edinburgh certainly beat flying IMO (as a tourist).
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    What was wrong? I only used it twice, and it was fine. Only fine -- it's a train, not a 5 star hotel. But the bed was comfy enough, I slept OK, and the scenery in the morning was really nice.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Thank you very much! I've always disliked it. Uncomfortable, bedding is spare, and overall not that much fun. And people often tell me I'm wrong. I've only ever been twice on it and disliked it both times. I take the day trains now instead.
scmbradley 4y ago
From the looks of it, this chap was travelling around in first class. Which would probably give a slightly different impression of train travel... I suspect he also wasn't travelling at peak times when trains are at their busiest and most unpleasant. To some extent, I agree that trains get a lot of criticism, and only some of it is deserved. But some of that criticism is very deserved...
- notahacker 4y ago
  And travelling around with the sort of budget that can consider first class and a willingness to book tickets at suitable times (and comparing prices with international sleeper trains in the rest of Europe!) completely misses why British commuters paying 20%+ of their after tax income for an annual rail pass into London consider it expensive.
  - blibble 4y ago
    I doubt many people are paying 20%+ of net income to commute in you'd have to be on minimum wage and a reasonable distance out (in which case you might as well just work locally) 10% however I can believe
    - edent 4y ago
      Have a play with https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/Season-Calculator.aspx https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/Season-Calculator... My old commute into London was £3,660 per year - standard class. Pretty close to 20% of my net at the time. Plenty of people do it because big cities are where the opportunities are.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        And that's not necessarily out of line. Where I live outside Boston which is within a (long--about 90 minute) commute into the city, commuter rail passes (including subway/bus) + parking at commuter rail station would run you about $6,000 per year.
michaelt 4y ago
> British people love to complain about the state of their railways I find people have a very different experience with UK rail on whether they're travelling for business or pleasure. People who commute have to take trains at peak time, at the absolute highest ticket prices, take hundreds of trains a year giving lots of opportunities to get delayed, might get yelled at for being late, and at the end of their journey is... work. On the other hand, my train travel is off-peak, not that frequent, and almost always taking me to a loved one, a party or a concert. Understandably, my feelings towards trains are very different to my commuter peers!
- jotm 4y ago
  When I lived in the UK, I thought 30 minute delays two days per week were the worst thing ever. After living in Germany... British railways seem like an enterprise level SLA. Tickets with a short expiration time (2 hours... why?), hour(s) long delays, sudden last minute platform changes (you need to use the underground passage full of people), trains just disappearing off the screen with no notice after being delayed several times (I mean, come on!), incredibly rude controllers who just seem like they really want to throw you in prison for not having a ticket (oh yeah, that's a thing, take that Brits!), shoddy rail and frequent stops in the middle of nowhere (or 100 meters from your station), trains that make the Pacers seem like Cadillacs (OK that was one time, not sure where they pulled that pos from)... I kinda see why Germans hate Deutsche Bahn :D
  - bloqs 4y ago
    This literally describes my british rail experience. My local trains are operated by DB.....
  - thinkingemote 4y ago
    I loved the Pacers there was something so democratic and comfy about the version with the rows of seats on them with no headrests. Lovely train.
    - pjc50 4y ago
pydry 4y ago
If you have plenty of flexibility, take a few journeys only and plan well ahead train travel in the UK is a bit pricey but generally fine. If, on the other hand, you need to go somewhere at short notice or you need to commute by train, they will f*king gouge you.
- _dain_ 4y ago
  How far ahead do you have to book? I've never noticed prices to vary depending on time ..
  - oakesm9 4y ago
    Advance tickets go on sale 12 weeks ahead of time. They start off cheap and once a certain amount is sold the price goes up. That keeps going until all advanced tickets are sold and you can only buy “anytime” tickets. I’m sure there’s a system for how many advance tickets there are for each route, but I can’t find any reference to it.
    - lol768 4y ago
      The system is called RARS, the quotas are set by the train operating companies and there's no transparency whatsoever as to how many tickets there are available per train service/journey segment at each price point (commercially sensitive). The most you'll get is a "there's 2 tickets left", I think for all n <= 9 Advance fare tiers are also not regulated by the Govt fares increase cap, so the operators can charge what they like.
    - M2Ys4U 4y ago
      >Advance tickets go on sale 12 weeks ahead of time. Unless you're travelling on Avanti!
case0x00 4y ago
Having both traveled across the country and throughout Greater London on trains, it is actually really convenient. London is its own kind of beast with the tube/overground, but throughout the rest of the country its definitely pleasant. Going through London during peak hours, dealing with trains randomly stopping midway through a journey with a packed carriage, dealing with anti-social teens, or traveling in the middle of summer in the tube isn't super fun. But on the other hand, going through the countryside on a long distance train like going up to Scotland is great; I basically just watched the views go by for 4 or so hours. That all being said, I can totally see daily commuting by train being the absolutely most miserable thing.
- traceroute66 4y ago
  > London is its own kind of beast with the tube/overground To do well in London you really have to know the city (or at least the areas around your start/end points). Especially as you get towards the centre of London, there are lots of opportunities for "cheating" (i.e. getting out and walking is much more efficient than going to your actual destination station, or, worse, changing trains). If you want to go that extra step, memorising the tube map (or at least the central areas) also helps because then you can consider your re-routing options based on the actual live status of the tube (I say "actual status" because London Underground ALWAYS lie about the actual status .... i.e. they will always declare "good service" until they really can't avoid admitting the truth, by which time the service is truly up the spout)
  - tomduncalf 4y ago
    As a London resident I find the app Citymapper pretty invaluable for making public transport decisions, it makes good use of both “shortcuts” and current conditions on the line to give pretty accurate results. Worth downloading if you visit (it’s also available in other major cities but I don’t know if it works equally well).
mihaaly 4y ago
Try to commute for a month next time please. ; )
- ghaff 4y ago
  I'm sure that one can identify exceptions but I suspect that anyone doing a daily commute at rush hour on public transportation just about anywhere would find plenty to complain about.
gw99 4y ago
I’m a regular train traveller in the UK. It’s a shit show especially for us hikers. Trying to navigate the mess that is different operators and ticket splits to not get utterly shafted is a nightmare. Then half the trains go missing or are on strike suddenly. I have got to the point I prefer the rail replacement busses.
renewiltord 4y ago
The first time I visited the UK, a train was slightly late and at the far end after I'd disembarked I noticed a man in a bowler hat, absolutely red in the face. "The train was TEN MINUTES LATE", he exclaimed at the station master. "We're still recovering from the storm", said the station master. "The storm was TWO WEEKS AGO. I can't believe you've still got trouble". I was very impressed by this bowler hatted Thompson&Thomson character's high standards. Of course, eventually I moved to the UK to live in London, and found that he must have been disappointed very often indeed.
Mordisquitos 4y ago
As someone with significant experience of using the rail networks in both the UK and Spain, I strongly agree with the last point regarding the hybrid reservation model. In addition, there's one further point which I don't think he mentions: the fact that in the UK you can buy a ticket at any station to go to any arbitrary station A from any arbitrary station B (notwithstanding the complexity of determining the best price). In Spain, by contrast, you simply cannot get a train ticket for the long distance network if you're at a commuter station, nor can you get a ticket to cover a route between two arbitrary stations if the route would combine long- and short-distance trains. You need to buy long distance and regional tickets separately, and cannot buy tickets for commuter services from outside the specific region. And they are all run by the same state-owned operator Renfe! Meanwhile, in the UK, you can go to Stalybridge on the outskirts of Manchester and ask the ticket office for a return ticket from Edinburgh Haymarket to Bury St Edmunds and they won't bat an eyelid even though it covers God knows how many potential operators. Note this is not in any way an example of the UK system being superior due to privatisation. The reason it works this well is because it already worked like that under British Rail.
- lol768 4y ago
  > the fact that in the UK you can buy a ticket at any station to go to any arbitrary station A from any arbitrary station B (notwithstanding the complexity of determining the best price). Mostly true, but not universally so - try Denton -> Manchester Piccadilly ;) </pedantry>
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    Denton to Manchester Piccadilly: http://traintimes.org.uk/denton/manchester/08:45/saturday http://traintimes.org.uk/denton/manchester/08:45/saturday -- the train only runs twice a week, on Saturdays. Although going outside Northern Trains' area does indeed seem to prevent fares being calculated: http://traintimes.org.uk/denton/deal/08:45/2022-10-22 http://traintimes.org.uk/denton/deal/08:45/2022-10-22
  - jefftk 4y ago
    For those of us less familiar with the British rail network: why would Denton to Manchester Piccadilly be a challenge to book a ticket for?
lol768 4y ago
> The UK has a hybrid model which is also in use in countries like Germany, which means that seat reservations can be made on many trains but aren’t compulsory. > This optional seat reservation system is so much better as it means that trains can technically never sell out and you can always hop on board of a certain service. The UK system is starting to move away from this "get up and go" model, unfortunately. A number of train operators are now setting the "Reservations are mandatory" flag on their services in the timetable data, which means that online journey planners cannot sell walk-up tickets if there is not seat reservation availability (or indeed, if reservations have not yet opened which is increasingly the case for west-coast services until very close to the travel date), even if it would be possible to buy that same ticket from a machine at the station or in-person at a ticket office and it would be perfectly valid for said service. It ends up with really poor UX.
- techsupporter 4y ago
  This is the problem I recently encountered with Avanti West Coast in particular, so often that I am kind of astounded that the author didn't hit it once and instead praises Avanti. Avanti's ticketing system would flatly refuse to sell me an "anytime single" for virtually any route. I had to scroll through and finally find one that claimed to have a seat reservation available and then I could use the actual train I wanted--which, I might add, had buckets of unreserved seats. Once I got griped at by a conductor for taking the "wrong" train when he missed that I had any anytime (1st!) ticket, which was the only thing their own booking engine would sell me. This month, every Avanti West Coast train I've tried to use has been canceled, and they seem utterly incapable of running direct trains. I've seen the inside of Crewe quite a few times more than I originally intended. (I understand that it is partially due to "industrial action"--such a nice phrase for "striking workers because they don't get paid enough"--and partially due to limited overtime by those same workers. That's, frankly, not my problem. Pay your people and run your trains.)
- nicoburns 4y ago
  > even if it would be possible to buy that same ticket from a machine at the station or in-person at a ticket office and it would be perfectly valid for said service. You can also buy a ticket which is nominally for a different train online, which will still be valid so long as it's not an advance ticket. But I agree this has bad UX.
SilverBirch 4y ago
>1. Train stations across the UK are gorgeous Yes, strategically we basically stopped investing Rail Infrastructure in the late Victorian era. So yes, everythin is very picturesque. >In my experience, looking up schedules, booking tickets, reserving seats and travelling by train was all as straightforward as can be. You clearly haven't ever bought a ticket. £30 please, unless you want to travel after 10am, then it'll be 25, oh wait you want to go via Reading that'll be 40. Haha, you got through the barrier tapping your oyster card? That doesn't work out here! >Avanti West Coast and LNER are the pick of the bunch in this regard as both offer quality hot meals and free-flowing drinks in first class, including beer, wine and strong alcohol. Yes, when you buy a train ticket the cost of a 3 bed semi, they've got some margin. The idea of traveling first class is unheard off for brits. >4. The UK has two great sleeper trains The UK, a country where you could name about 30 destinations that would deserve decent sleeper routes, has two. This sums up the Caledonian sleeper:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/22/passenger-spent-night-on-scotland-to-london-sleeper-train-but-went-nowhere https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/22/passenger-sp... >5. Train travel in the UK can be expensive, but.. I live in a commuter town to London, I spend more on a single ticket to work than a months unlimited travel on German railways. >7. Platforms are announced late Specifically, they're announced far later than they need to be. If you see the 9:15 train to Maidenhead hasn't announced the platform yet, go have a look at the arrivals. Becuase there's almost certianly an arrival at 9:03 from Maidenhead on platform 4. Guess what. >9. Railway employees are amazing Yeah, brits actually know this. It's only politicians and millionaire corporate execs that don't.
- gambiting 4y ago
  >>The idea of traveling first class is unheard off for brits. I mean, that's a weird statement to make. Every time I travel the 1st class is packed, and it's not packed with blog-writing foreign visitors. Also the 1st class upgrade can be very cheap - I've been down to London several times where the upgrade was £40 on the day of the departure. Also Newcastle-Edinburgh on the Azuma LNER train in 1st class can be had for as little as £40-50 total, did this several times too. Hardly an extravagant expense.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > The idea of traveling first class is unheard off for brits. Bizarre and falsifiable claim. Who do you think is in there? All foreigners? I travel first class quite often if I'm booking in advance, or if I'm travelling on the weekend - and I'm not any kind of money bags foreigner. More space to work, or if you are bringing your family.
GOATS- 4y ago
The author of this post seemed to have struck gold with the trains he went on. This entire summer, my train trips have been troubled with constant delays and cancellations either because of heat or the constant rail strikes. Travelling to-and-fro Stansted by train was awful compared to taking the National Express up to the airport. The CrossCountry trains were small and crammed to the brim, I had even less leg space in the train than I did with my budget airline flight. Even sitting up completely straight, I still felt my knees rub up against the metal of the seat in front of me. The train stations and trains themselves were filthy with trash lying around. One thing that always bothers me while travelling in the UK, is how there's essentially no cell service along the whole route. You're lucky if you even get to pull up HN reliably. I suppose it helps travelling first class - but that is not at all realistic for most people living in the UK.
- benbristow 4y ago
  > You're lucky if you even get to pull up HN reliably Funny how you say that, HN seems to be one of those sites that works well even on a really terrible WiFi (i.e. UK train WiFi - LNER/Avanti, looking at you)/data connection - mainly due to how basic it is. Shame it's only a link aggregator so the actual 'content' (other than comments) is hit/miss.
- deergomoo 4y ago
  > One thing that always bothers me while travelling in the UK, is how there's essentially no cell service along the whole route And because the onboard Wi-Fi is primarily 4G/5G driven, it’s equally unreliable. I recently flew from Manchester to Toronto and the in-flight Wi-Fi was rock solid almost the entire way. Meanwhile a few weeks ago I took the train from Manchester to Euston for work and the Wi-Fi wasn’t reliable enough to get anything done. > The CrossCountry trains were small and crammed to the brim If it was a Voyager/Super Voyager those things are my second least favourite trains on the network*. They were built with a tilting mechanism like the Pendolinos, requiring they be vertically tapered. This makes them feel oppressive and cramped, and stops you standing up without hitting your head. The worst part is, the tilt was disabled to improve reliability, so it’s all for nought. *My first least favourite train is the Pacer. Cursed 80s bus on rails.
- 4y ago
bakoo 4y ago
Having traveled through large parts of Europe by train before ever visiting the UK, I can only say that UK train travel isn't beginner friendly.
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
It was 17 years since I lived in the UK, so it may have changed a lot, but my experience with trains was not that great: - very expensive - not enough space, and too small rack areas for luggages - booking that crossed over several private train companies was complicated and unreliable The experience was much better in France. But as I said, it could have changed a lot.
- jon-wood 4y ago
  Only the third point isn’t valid still, and to be honest I’m not sure it was valid 17 years ago either. There are many complaints I have about the British rail system, but I’ve never had a problem booking tickets that cover multiple operating companies.
stuaxo 4y ago
"last minute tickets can be expensive" we used to call these walk up tickets and it was just the same price as everything (and not expensive).
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> British people love to complain about the state of their railway Because they invented railways, and then stopped investing in them. HS2 is the first new line of rail north of London in like 150 years.
- pjc50 4y ago
  cough Tweedbank: https://www.scotrail.co.uk/scotland-by-rail/great-scenic-rail-journeys/borders-railway-edinburgh-tweedbank https://www.scotrail.co.uk/scotland-by-rail/great-scenic-rai... Which unlike HS2 is actually open and running. Unfortunately to get it built they limited it to single-track, and run short trains on it, so inevitably it was overcrowded at peak times from day 1.
bArray 4y ago
> During my travels in the UK I heard lots of Brits complain about the price of train tickets. It's that it is often cheaper and faster to drive if you are not taking a train in or out of London. > This might surprise British readers, but I have nothing but good things to say about the reliability and punctuality of trains in the UK. The problem is that when the train is delayed, it can end up as cancelled as they have a specific time window to fit in. Again, the comparison here would be a car. You could end up in traffic, but eventually at least you will reach your destination. As somebody living outside of London, I have zero time for somebody complaining that the tube was 1 minute late. Try waiting several hours, just to find the train won't be coming at all. Anyway, it is really weird to hear so much positive about the UK rail system. Any good there will likely get demolished in the coming recession and energy crisis. I have no idea how rail will still be viable during the coming rolling blackouts.
Eleison23 4y ago
I passed through London on my way to and from Barcelona in 2008. I've been riding public transit since I was 8 years old, but this was my first time outside the USA. Of course TFL is legendary and I absolutely fell in love at first sight with the Tube. I took a few detours just for fun, to see different stations and have a sort of Harry Potter experience. My hotel was two blocks from Paddington Station, but I was unaware of the enormous Paddington Bear monument. I found it totally simple to purchase tickets as soon as I'd alighted at Gatwick. I hopped on a train going into the city and I immediately began to chat with a local. We crossed a large body of water on a bridge and I did a double-take. "Was that the Thames?" Yep! I didn't have a lot of time or destinations in London. Just a few restaurants and my hotel. But I'd arrived at Gatwick and I was departing from Heathrow, so that made for a rail adventure. I didn't venture outside the city, and I didn't ride any double-decker buses or hansom cabs. I think I'd done a bit of research stateside before I departed for the trip. I found the route maps and station signage easy to read; of course since I'm a fluent speaker of the King's English. I rode a few local train lines with my fiancee in Barcelona, and I'm thankful that she acted as my guide. I would've enjoyed taking an AVE to another city center, but those are far-flung in Spain! Interestingly enough, 2008 was the year that my hometown established light rail service. When I left for Spain, there was no train in Phoenix; when I arrived home, there was daily train service running through town, and I immediately became a regular!
sershe 4y ago
I traveled by train around England (in many small hops, London to Newcastle to Carlisle to Portsmouth and back to London) and Germany (in a similar pattern but from Frankfurt to Berlin with a side trip north) and generally found British trains to be as reliable, more pleasant, and less crowded. Although to be fair in Germany I did have to plan my trips and in England I got the all-you-can-ride youth pass that just allowed me to hop on any train I wanted (flashpacking!). It's a pretty nice way to travel if you don't want to go outside of the network (as soon as I had to go somewhere without a train like Richmond castle or Hadrian wall it was kind of pain). Not sure I would want to commute like that though, unlike inter-city subways whatever trains I happened to take at rush our, in either country, were not so great.
golemiprague 4y ago
switch007 4y ago
Just to counter the “mainland Europe has superior trains” kind of argument. I find the IC in the Netherlands to be old, crowded, dirty and uncomfortable. Compare https://www.seat61.com/images/Netherlands-ic-2nd-large.jpg https://www.seat61.com/images/Netherlands-ic-2nd-large.jpg and https://mobile.twitter.com/TPExpressTrains/status/986966416967467008/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/TPExpressTrains/status/9869664169... . The Dutch ones are refurbished original stock from decades ago I believe. I believe the latter seats a lot more people too. But I prefer the Dutch prices :D
- arcen 4y ago
  I for one like them. They are fast and on-time. The crowd to my destinations is usually during rush hours (before 9) which is now exacerbated due to the lack of NS staff recently.
  - switch007 4y ago
    They are fast, for sure.
platelminto 4y ago
I'm surprised no one (including TFA) has mentioned Trainline yet, as it addresses a lot of the issues mentioned in the comments here: - buy tickets (with easy explanations of when/where they're valid) - see which platform a train will depart from/arrive at - check delays - see walking times between platforms - bus connections info - handles refunds - etc. It works across Europe (elsewhere, I'm not sure), but in my experience it's got the most functionality within the UK. The app itself is fantastic too. I'm not exaggerating when I say it is one of my favourite pieces of software - it does 1 thing, and does it super well. It's fast: no fluff, no ads. Few apps on my phone are like that anymore.
- BritishTrainer 4y ago
  Nobody I know uses that app. They charge way higher admin and booking fees than the alternatives. Trainline adds a fee to every ticket sold, apps like TrainPal do the same things as Trainline (book tickets, check delays, see platform, walking times, etc), but only charge a fee if they get you the ticket cheaper than buying it from the station. So, including the fee, the price you pay is still less. And it find way better split-ticket deals than Trainline does.
  - kn100 4y ago
    the fee is usually less than £1. Every single person I know in the UK that travels via train uses it. I wish it didn't fall to a private institution to provide what is a fairly basic service, but I think the fee shouldn't deter people from using it, especially considering they don't even charge it in a lot of cases. Booking tickets directly with a ToC is a terrible experience.
    - blibble 4y ago
      > Booking tickets directly with a ToC is a terrible experience. most of them use exactly the same booking engine, just without the fee you even see trainline.com in the address bar
  - bbno4 4y ago
cannam 4y ago
I didn't know about Realtime Trains (https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/ https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/). I'm definitely going to be using that! It shows a lot of technical detail, but the exciting bit is that it has the platform a train is booked to use, shown in light text, before the platform is actually confirmed, when it turns bold. Departure boards and other apps that use the standard feed only show the platform once it has been confirmed. That's obviously sensible from the point of view of crowd management and avoiding mishap, but I would often like to have a provisional idea of what to expect.
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  For full train nerddom, there's also https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps, which shows the data from the train describer system so you can track the position of trains down to the signal level.
jamiegreen 4y ago
I am surprised that anyone has anything good to say about Scotrail, yet it seems even their terrible service wasn't enough to dampen his sunny disposition. Scotrail is terrible. Not one of the last ~6 services I have used has gone well. My favourite example is when my train was cancelled due to 'weather'. It was slightly raining. Only Scotrail could be caught off-guard by rain in Scotland.
drcongo 4y ago
Surprised there's not a single mention of the article photography in the comments here, I thought it was excellent.
rjmunro 4y ago
One of the problems with British railways is that they think bank holidays are a great time to do engineering works, close lines and cause confusion and chaos. This is simply madness. On Intercity routes they are the absolute busiest days. They are populated by people who don't go on trains very often so they won't be familiar with alternative routes. People can't go any other time so can't alter their journeys to compensate. It also costs loads more money to hire people to do the work that at other times of the year. If they closed routes during normal times, people who take the train regularly could see advanced notice saying "the train won't be available on xx days next month, please plan accordingly" and they could plan to e.g. work from home that day, take the car or a Taxi to another station and catch a train from there, find a bus or coach service, or take the Rail Replacement bus, but allowing the extra time it would take. They could be compensated with extra time on their season tickets and could appreciate the improvements in service.
bearmode 4y ago
I'd wager that this person wasn't doing a lot of travelling around cities during rush hour commutes. >I travelled quite extensively throughout Europe by train in the last three months and of all countries visited it was the UK which had the best record when it came to trains running on time as I don’t think I had one which arrived more than five minutes late. This particularly struck me as odd, as when I used to commute by train from to Manchester just a few years ago, I tracked at least 25% of my trains as being late. The latest train was 1.5 hours late (going from Manchester), constantly being updated as being 15 minutes late... then another 15 minutes... I was about to bite the bullet and pay for a taxi as it showed up.
rasz 4y ago
News https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-63028118 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-63028118 Labour commits to renationalisation of the railways. Shadow Teansport Sec: “Labour in power will bring our railways back into public ownership as contracts expire.” Looks like someone finally noticed there is something very wrong with John Majors railways privatization.
vincent-manis 4y ago
My UK rail experience is about 15 years out of date, and mostly focused on commuter trains (with some London<->Manchester travel). I rapidly discovered that timetables were artful fictions, but that if there were supposed to be 4 trains per hour on a certain run, there typically would be 4 trains...just not the ones in the timetable. I craved a job in the Excuses Department of South-West Trains, who were responsible for announcements such as “The 19:41 train to London Waterloo will now arrive at 20:23, because of a crew member joining the train late in Portsmouth.” The creativity of these announcements was amazing. That said, I relied on the train service while I was in the UK. I can only think of one time that it ground to a halt, during a snowstorm that paralyzed the country.

173 points by edent 4y ago

> the Caledonian Sleeper has to be one of the railway highlights of the UK ahh, I've really wanted to like it, but I've found it exceptionally uncomfortable each time I've used it, and also very expensive. I much prefer the sleeper trains in Thailand > Train travel in the UK can be highly scenic The UK really is very pretty. It's easy to forget when in countries with blockbuster scenery, but British countryside really is a joy to look at. EDIT: one day I'd like this to be an overnight Zeppelin route, but it's never going to happen

gw99 4y ago
The Caledonian sleeper is hell on earth. I did it once. The only worse experience I had was a rotten old YHA hostel in the 90s where I stayed in a bunk room with three people with bowel disorders. And it wasn’t much worse.
- eynsham 4y ago
  Was that on the new trains?
  - gw99 4y ago
    Was 2019 so I expect so unless they replaced them since.
    - eynsham 4y ago
      Hm, the Mark 5 carriages were introduced in April and October 2019, so it could have been either just from the year.
  - petesergeant 4y ago
    I've done both, both were equally miserable tbh
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I did it in about 2019. I shared a sleeper with a friend. Yeah, the sleeper was tight and the dining car was crowded. But getting on after dinner in London and arriving in Edinburgh certainly beat flying IMO (as a tourist).
- Symbiote 4y ago
  What was wrong? I only used it twice, and it was fine. Only fine -- it's a train, not a 5 star hotel. But the bed was comfy enough, I slept OK, and the scenery in the morning was really nice.
renewiltord 4y ago
Thank you very much! I've always disliked it. Uncomfortable, bedding is spare, and overall not that much fun. And people often tell me I'm wrong. I've only ever been twice on it and disliked it both times. I take the day trains now instead.

scmbradley 4y ago

From the looks of it, this chap was travelling around in first class. Which would probably give a slightly different impression of train travel... I suspect he also wasn't travelling at peak times when trains are at their busiest and most unpleasant. To some extent, I agree that trains get a lot of criticism, and only some of it is deserved. But some of that criticism is very deserved...

notahacker 4y ago
And travelling around with the sort of budget that can consider first class and a willingness to book tickets at suitable times (and comparing prices with international sleeper trains in the rest of Europe!) completely misses why British commuters paying 20%+ of their after tax income for an annual rail pass into London consider it expensive.
- blibble 4y ago
  I doubt many people are paying 20%+ of net income to commute in you'd have to be on minimum wage and a reasonable distance out (in which case you might as well just work locally) 10% however I can believe
  - edent 4y ago
    Have a play with https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/Season-Calculator.aspx https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/Season-Calculator... My old commute into London was £3,660 per year - standard class. Pretty close to 20% of my net at the time. Plenty of people do it because big cities are where the opportunities are.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      And that's not necessarily out of line. Where I live outside Boston which is within a (long--about 90 minute) commute into the city, commuter rail passes (including subway/bus) + parking at commuter rail station would run you about $6,000 per year.

michaelt 4y ago

> British people love to complain about the state of their railways I find people have a very different experience with UK rail on whether they're travelling for business or pleasure. People who commute have to take trains at peak time, at the absolute highest ticket prices, take hundreds of trains a year giving lots of opportunities to get delayed, might get yelled at for being late, and at the end of their journey is... work. On the other hand, my train travel is off-peak, not that frequent, and almost always taking me to a loved one, a party or a concert. Understandably, my feelings towards trains are very different to my commuter peers!

jotm 4y ago
When I lived in the UK, I thought 30 minute delays two days per week were the worst thing ever. After living in Germany... British railways seem like an enterprise level SLA. Tickets with a short expiration time (2 hours... why?), hour(s) long delays, sudden last minute platform changes (you need to use the underground passage full of people), trains just disappearing off the screen with no notice after being delayed several times (I mean, come on!), incredibly rude controllers who just seem like they really want to throw you in prison for not having a ticket (oh yeah, that's a thing, take that Brits!), shoddy rail and frequent stops in the middle of nowhere (or 100 meters from your station), trains that make the Pacers seem like Cadillacs (OK that was one time, not sure where they pulled that pos from)... I kinda see why Germans hate Deutsche Bahn :D
- bloqs 4y ago
  This literally describes my british rail experience. My local trains are operated by DB.....
- thinkingemote 4y ago
  I loved the Pacers there was something so democratic and comfy about the version with the rows of seats on them with no headrests. Lovely train.
  - pjc50 4y ago

pydry 4y ago

If you have plenty of flexibility, take a few journeys only and plan well ahead train travel in the UK is a bit pricey but generally fine. If, on the other hand, you need to go somewhere at short notice or you need to commute by train, they will f*king gouge you.

_dain_ 4y ago
How far ahead do you have to book? I've never noticed prices to vary depending on time ..
- oakesm9 4y ago
  Advance tickets go on sale 12 weeks ahead of time. They start off cheap and once a certain amount is sold the price goes up. That keeps going until all advanced tickets are sold and you can only buy “anytime” tickets. I’m sure there’s a system for how many advance tickets there are for each route, but I can’t find any reference to it.
  - lol768 4y ago
    The system is called RARS, the quotas are set by the train operating companies and there's no transparency whatsoever as to how many tickets there are available per train service/journey segment at each price point (commercially sensitive). The most you'll get is a "there's 2 tickets left", I think for all n <= 9 Advance fare tiers are also not regulated by the Govt fares increase cap, so the operators can charge what they like.
  - M2Ys4U 4y ago
    >Advance tickets go on sale 12 weeks ahead of time. Unless you're travelling on Avanti!

case0x00 4y ago

Having both traveled across the country and throughout Greater London on trains, it is actually really convenient. London is its own kind of beast with the tube/overground, but throughout the rest of the country its definitely pleasant. Going through London during peak hours, dealing with trains randomly stopping midway through a journey with a packed carriage, dealing with anti-social teens, or traveling in the middle of summer in the tube isn't super fun. But on the other hand, going through the countryside on a long distance train like going up to Scotland is great; I basically just watched the views go by for 4 or so hours. That all being said, I can totally see daily commuting by train being the absolutely most miserable thing.

traceroute66 4y ago
> London is its own kind of beast with the tube/overground To do well in London you really have to know the city (or at least the areas around your start/end points). Especially as you get towards the centre of London, there are lots of opportunities for "cheating" (i.e. getting out and walking is much more efficient than going to your actual destination station, or, worse, changing trains). If you want to go that extra step, memorising the tube map (or at least the central areas) also helps because then you can consider your re-routing options based on the actual live status of the tube (I say "actual status" because London Underground ALWAYS lie about the actual status .... i.e. they will always declare "good service" until they really can't avoid admitting the truth, by which time the service is truly up the spout)
- tomduncalf 4y ago
  As a London resident I find the app Citymapper pretty invaluable for making public transport decisions, it makes good use of both “shortcuts” and current conditions on the line to give pretty accurate results. Worth downloading if you visit (it’s also available in other major cities but I don’t know if it works equally well).

mihaaly 4y ago

Try to commute for a month next time please. ; )

ghaff 4y ago
I'm sure that one can identify exceptions but I suspect that anyone doing a daily commute at rush hour on public transportation just about anywhere would find plenty to complain about.

gw99 4y ago

I’m a regular train traveller in the UK. It’s a shit show especially for us hikers. Trying to navigate the mess that is different operators and ticket splits to not get utterly shafted is a nightmare. Then half the trains go missing or are on strike suddenly. I have got to the point I prefer the rail replacement busses.

renewiltord 4y ago

The first time I visited the UK, a train was slightly late and at the far end after I'd disembarked I noticed a man in a bowler hat, absolutely red in the face. "The train was TEN MINUTES LATE", he exclaimed at the station master. "We're still recovering from the storm", said the station master. "The storm was TWO WEEKS AGO. I can't believe you've still got trouble". I was very impressed by this bowler hatted Thompson&Thomson character's high standards. Of course, eventually I moved to the UK to live in London, and found that he must have been disappointed very often indeed.

Mordisquitos 4y ago

As someone with significant experience of using the rail networks in both the UK and Spain, I strongly agree with the last point regarding the hybrid reservation model. In addition, there's one further point which I don't think he mentions: the fact that in the UK you can buy a ticket at any station to go to any arbitrary station A from any arbitrary station B (notwithstanding the complexity of determining the best price). In Spain, by contrast, you simply cannot get a train ticket for the long distance network if you're at a commuter station, nor can you get a ticket to cover a route between two arbitrary stations if the route would combine long- and short-distance trains. You need to buy long distance and regional tickets separately, and cannot buy tickets for commuter services from outside the specific region. And they are all run by the same state-owned operator Renfe! Meanwhile, in the UK, you can go to Stalybridge on the outskirts of Manchester and ask the ticket office for a return ticket from Edinburgh Haymarket to Bury St Edmunds and they won't bat an eyelid even though it covers God knows how many potential operators. Note this is not in any way an example of the UK system being superior due to privatisation. The reason it works this well is because it already worked like that under British Rail.

lol768 4y ago
> the fact that in the UK you can buy a ticket at any station to go to any arbitrary station A from any arbitrary station B (notwithstanding the complexity of determining the best price). Mostly true, but not universally so - try Denton -> Manchester Piccadilly ;) </pedantry>
- Symbiote 4y ago
  Denton to Manchester Piccadilly: http://traintimes.org.uk/denton/manchester/08:45/saturday http://traintimes.org.uk/denton/manchester/08:45/saturday -- the train only runs twice a week, on Saturdays. Although going outside Northern Trains' area does indeed seem to prevent fares being calculated: http://traintimes.org.uk/denton/deal/08:45/2022-10-22 http://traintimes.org.uk/denton/deal/08:45/2022-10-22
- jefftk 4y ago
  For those of us less familiar with the British rail network: why would Denton to Manchester Piccadilly be a challenge to book a ticket for?

lol768 4y ago

> The UK has a hybrid model which is also in use in countries like Germany, which means that seat reservations can be made on many trains but aren’t compulsory. > This optional seat reservation system is so much better as it means that trains can technically never sell out and you can always hop on board of a certain service. The UK system is starting to move away from this "get up and go" model, unfortunately. A number of train operators are now setting the "Reservations are mandatory" flag on their services in the timetable data, which means that online journey planners cannot sell walk-up tickets if there is not seat reservation availability (or indeed, if reservations have not yet opened which is increasingly the case for west-coast services until very close to the travel date), even if it would be possible to buy that same ticket from a machine at the station or in-person at a ticket office and it would be perfectly valid for said service. It ends up with really poor UX.

techsupporter 4y ago
This is the problem I recently encountered with Avanti West Coast in particular, so often that I am kind of astounded that the author didn't hit it once and instead praises Avanti. Avanti's ticketing system would flatly refuse to sell me an "anytime single" for virtually any route. I had to scroll through and finally find one that claimed to have a seat reservation available and then I could use the actual train I wanted--which, I might add, had buckets of unreserved seats. Once I got griped at by a conductor for taking the "wrong" train when he missed that I had any anytime (1st!) ticket, which was the only thing their own booking engine would sell me. This month, every Avanti West Coast train I've tried to use has been canceled, and they seem utterly incapable of running direct trains. I've seen the inside of Crewe quite a few times more than I originally intended. (I understand that it is partially due to "industrial action"--such a nice phrase for "striking workers because they don't get paid enough"--and partially due to limited overtime by those same workers. That's, frankly, not my problem. Pay your people and run your trains.)
nicoburns 4y ago
> even if it would be possible to buy that same ticket from a machine at the station or in-person at a ticket office and it would be perfectly valid for said service. You can also buy a ticket which is nominally for a different train online, which will still be valid so long as it's not an advance ticket. But I agree this has bad UX.

SilverBirch 4y ago

>1. Train stations across the UK are gorgeous Yes, strategically we basically stopped investing Rail Infrastructure in the late Victorian era. So yes, everythin is very picturesque. >In my experience, looking up schedules, booking tickets, reserving seats and travelling by train was all as straightforward as can be. You clearly haven't ever bought a ticket. £30 please, unless you want to travel after 10am, then it'll be 25, oh wait you want to go via Reading that'll be 40. Haha, you got through the barrier tapping your oyster card? That doesn't work out here! >Avanti West Coast and LNER are the pick of the bunch in this regard as both offer quality hot meals and free-flowing drinks in first class, including beer, wine and strong alcohol. Yes, when you buy a train ticket the cost of a 3 bed semi, they've got some margin. The idea of traveling first class is unheard off for brits. >4. The UK has two great sleeper trains The UK, a country where you could name about 30 destinations that would deserve decent sleeper routes, has two. This sums up the Caledonian sleeper:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/22/passenger-spent-night-on-scotland-to-london-sleeper-train-but-went-nowhere https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/22/passenger-sp... >5. Train travel in the UK can be expensive, but.. I live in a commuter town to London, I spend more on a single ticket to work than a months unlimited travel on German railways. >7. Platforms are announced late Specifically, they're announced far later than they need to be. If you see the 9:15 train to Maidenhead hasn't announced the platform yet, go have a look at the arrivals. Becuase there's almost certianly an arrival at 9:03 from Maidenhead on platform 4. Guess what. >9. Railway employees are amazing Yeah, brits actually know this. It's only politicians and millionaire corporate execs that don't.

gambiting 4y ago
>>The idea of traveling first class is unheard off for brits. I mean, that's a weird statement to make. Every time I travel the 1st class is packed, and it's not packed with blog-writing foreign visitors. Also the 1st class upgrade can be very cheap - I've been down to London several times where the upgrade was £40 on the day of the departure. Also Newcastle-Edinburgh on the Azuma LNER train in 1st class can be had for as little as £40-50 total, did this several times too. Hardly an extravagant expense.
chrisseaton 4y ago
> The idea of traveling first class is unheard off for brits. Bizarre and falsifiable claim. Who do you think is in there? All foreigners? I travel first class quite often if I'm booking in advance, or if I'm travelling on the weekend - and I'm not any kind of money bags foreigner. More space to work, or if you are bringing your family.

GOATS- 4y ago

The author of this post seemed to have struck gold with the trains he went on. This entire summer, my train trips have been troubled with constant delays and cancellations either because of heat or the constant rail strikes. Travelling to-and-fro Stansted by train was awful compared to taking the National Express up to the airport. The CrossCountry trains were small and crammed to the brim, I had even less leg space in the train than I did with my budget airline flight. Even sitting up completely straight, I still felt my knees rub up against the metal of the seat in front of me. The train stations and trains themselves were filthy with trash lying around. One thing that always bothers me while travelling in the UK, is how there's essentially no cell service along the whole route. You're lucky if you even get to pull up HN reliably. I suppose it helps travelling first class - but that is not at all realistic for most people living in the UK.

benbristow 4y ago
> You're lucky if you even get to pull up HN reliably Funny how you say that, HN seems to be one of those sites that works well even on a really terrible WiFi (i.e. UK train WiFi - LNER/Avanti, looking at you)/data connection - mainly due to how basic it is. Shame it's only a link aggregator so the actual 'content' (other than comments) is hit/miss.
deergomoo 4y ago
> One thing that always bothers me while travelling in the UK, is how there's essentially no cell service along the whole route And because the onboard Wi-Fi is primarily 4G/5G driven, it’s equally unreliable. I recently flew from Manchester to Toronto and the in-flight Wi-Fi was rock solid almost the entire way. Meanwhile a few weeks ago I took the train from Manchester to Euston for work and the Wi-Fi wasn’t reliable enough to get anything done. > The CrossCountry trains were small and crammed to the brim If it was a Voyager/Super Voyager those things are my second least favourite trains on the network*. They were built with a tilting mechanism like the Pendolinos, requiring they be vertically tapered. This makes them feel oppressive and cramped, and stops you standing up without hitting your head. The worst part is, the tilt was disabled to improve reliability, so it’s all for nought. *My first least favourite train is the Pacer. Cursed 80s bus on rails.
4y ago

bakoo 4y ago

Having traveled through large parts of Europe by train before ever visiting the UK, I can only say that UK train travel isn't beginner friendly.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

It was 17 years since I lived in the UK, so it may have changed a lot, but my experience with trains was not that great: - very expensive - not enough space, and too small rack areas for luggages - booking that crossed over several private train companies was complicated and unreliable The experience was much better in France. But as I said, it could have changed a lot.

jon-wood 4y ago
Only the third point isn’t valid still, and to be honest I’m not sure it was valid 17 years ago either. There are many complaints I have about the British rail system, but I’ve never had a problem booking tickets that cover multiple operating companies.

stuaxo 4y ago

"last minute tickets can be expensive" we used to call these walk up tickets and it was just the same price as everything (and not expensive).

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> British people love to complain about the state of their railway Because they invented railways, and then stopped investing in them. HS2 is the first new line of rail north of London in like 150 years.

pjc50 4y ago
cough Tweedbank: https://www.scotrail.co.uk/scotland-by-rail/great-scenic-rail-journeys/borders-railway-edinburgh-tweedbank https://www.scotrail.co.uk/scotland-by-rail/great-scenic-rai... Which unlike HS2 is actually open and running. Unfortunately to get it built they limited it to single-track, and run short trains on it, so inevitably it was overcrowded at peak times from day 1.

bArray 4y ago

> During my travels in the UK I heard lots of Brits complain about the price of train tickets. It's that it is often cheaper and faster to drive if you are not taking a train in or out of London. > This might surprise British readers, but I have nothing but good things to say about the reliability and punctuality of trains in the UK. The problem is that when the train is delayed, it can end up as cancelled as they have a specific time window to fit in. Again, the comparison here would be a car. You could end up in traffic, but eventually at least you will reach your destination. As somebody living outside of London, I have zero time for somebody complaining that the tube was 1 minute late. Try waiting several hours, just to find the train won't be coming at all. Anyway, it is really weird to hear so much positive about the UK rail system. Any good there will likely get demolished in the coming recession and energy crisis. I have no idea how rail will still be viable during the coming rolling blackouts.

Eleison23 4y ago

I passed through London on my way to and from Barcelona in 2008. I've been riding public transit since I was 8 years old, but this was my first time outside the USA. Of course TFL is legendary and I absolutely fell in love at first sight with the Tube. I took a few detours just for fun, to see different stations and have a sort of Harry Potter experience. My hotel was two blocks from Paddington Station, but I was unaware of the enormous Paddington Bear monument. I found it totally simple to purchase tickets as soon as I'd alighted at Gatwick. I hopped on a train going into the city and I immediately began to chat with a local. We crossed a large body of water on a bridge and I did a double-take. "Was that the Thames?" Yep! I didn't have a lot of time or destinations in London. Just a few restaurants and my hotel. But I'd arrived at Gatwick and I was departing from Heathrow, so that made for a rail adventure. I didn't venture outside the city, and I didn't ride any double-decker buses or hansom cabs. I think I'd done a bit of research stateside before I departed for the trip. I found the route maps and station signage easy to read; of course since I'm a fluent speaker of the King's English. I rode a few local train lines with my fiancee in Barcelona, and I'm thankful that she acted as my guide. I would've enjoyed taking an AVE to another city center, but those are far-flung in Spain! Interestingly enough, 2008 was the year that my hometown established light rail service. When I left for Spain, there was no train in Phoenix; when I arrived home, there was daily train service running through town, and I immediately became a regular!

sershe 4y ago

I traveled by train around England (in many small hops, London to Newcastle to Carlisle to Portsmouth and back to London) and Germany (in a similar pattern but from Frankfurt to Berlin with a side trip north) and generally found British trains to be as reliable, more pleasant, and less crowded. Although to be fair in Germany I did have to plan my trips and in England I got the all-you-can-ride youth pass that just allowed me to hop on any train I wanted (flashpacking!). It's a pretty nice way to travel if you don't want to go outside of the network (as soon as I had to go somewhere without a train like Richmond castle or Hadrian wall it was kind of pain). Not sure I would want to commute like that though, unlike inter-city subways whatever trains I happened to take at rush our, in either country, were not so great.

golemiprague 4y ago

switch007 4y ago

Just to counter the “mainland Europe has superior trains” kind of argument. I find the IC in the Netherlands to be old, crowded, dirty and uncomfortable. Compare https://www.seat61.com/images/Netherlands-ic-2nd-large.jpg https://www.seat61.com/images/Netherlands-ic-2nd-large.jpg and https://mobile.twitter.com/TPExpressTrains/status/986966416967467008/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/TPExpressTrains/status/9869664169... . The Dutch ones are refurbished original stock from decades ago I believe. I believe the latter seats a lot more people too. But I prefer the Dutch prices :D

arcen 4y ago
I for one like them. They are fast and on-time. The crowd to my destinations is usually during rush hours (before 9) which is now exacerbated due to the lack of NS staff recently.
- switch007 4y ago
  They are fast, for sure.

platelminto 4y ago

I'm surprised no one (including TFA) has mentioned Trainline yet, as it addresses a lot of the issues mentioned in the comments here: - buy tickets (with easy explanations of when/where they're valid) - see which platform a train will depart from/arrive at - check delays - see walking times between platforms - bus connections info - handles refunds - etc. It works across Europe (elsewhere, I'm not sure), but in my experience it's got the most functionality within the UK. The app itself is fantastic too. I'm not exaggerating when I say it is one of my favourite pieces of software - it does 1 thing, and does it super well. It's fast: no fluff, no ads. Few apps on my phone are like that anymore.

BritishTrainer 4y ago
Nobody I know uses that app. They charge way higher admin and booking fees than the alternatives. Trainline adds a fee to every ticket sold, apps like TrainPal do the same things as Trainline (book tickets, check delays, see platform, walking times, etc), but only charge a fee if they get you the ticket cheaper than buying it from the station. So, including the fee, the price you pay is still less. And it find way better split-ticket deals than Trainline does.
- kn100 4y ago
  the fee is usually less than £1. Every single person I know in the UK that travels via train uses it. I wish it didn't fall to a private institution to provide what is a fairly basic service, but I think the fee shouldn't deter people from using it, especially considering they don't even charge it in a lot of cases. Booking tickets directly with a ToC is a terrible experience.
  - blibble 4y ago
    > Booking tickets directly with a ToC is a terrible experience. most of them use exactly the same booking engine, just without the fee you even see trainline.com in the address bar
- bbno4 4y ago

cannam 4y ago

I didn't know about Realtime Trains (https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/ https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/). I'm definitely going to be using that! It shows a lot of technical detail, but the exciting bit is that it has the platform a train is booked to use, shown in light text, before the platform is actually confirmed, when it turns bold. Departure boards and other apps that use the standard feed only show the platform once it has been confirmed. That's obviously sensible from the point of view of crowd management and avoiding mishap, but I would often like to have a provisional idea of what to expect.

iggldiggl 4y ago
For full train nerddom, there's also https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps, which shows the data from the train describer system so you can track the position of trains down to the signal level.

jamiegreen 4y ago

I am surprised that anyone has anything good to say about Scotrail, yet it seems even their terrible service wasn't enough to dampen his sunny disposition. Scotrail is terrible. Not one of the last ~6 services I have used has gone well. My favourite example is when my train was cancelled due to 'weather'. It was slightly raining. Only Scotrail could be caught off-guard by rain in Scotland.

drcongo 4y ago

Surprised there's not a single mention of the article photography in the comments here, I thought it was excellent.

rjmunro 4y ago

One of the problems with British railways is that they think bank holidays are a great time to do engineering works, close lines and cause confusion and chaos. This is simply madness. On Intercity routes they are the absolute busiest days. They are populated by people who don't go on trains very often so they won't be familiar with alternative routes. People can't go any other time so can't alter their journeys to compensate. It also costs loads more money to hire people to do the work that at other times of the year. If they closed routes during normal times, people who take the train regularly could see advanced notice saying "the train won't be available on xx days next month, please plan accordingly" and they could plan to e.g. work from home that day, take the car or a Taxi to another station and catch a train from there, find a bus or coach service, or take the Rail Replacement bus, but allowing the extra time it would take. They could be compensated with extra time on their season tickets and could appreciate the improvements in service.

bearmode 4y ago

I'd wager that this person wasn't doing a lot of travelling around cities during rush hour commutes. >I travelled quite extensively throughout Europe by train in the last three months and of all countries visited it was the UK which had the best record when it came to trains running on time as I don’t think I had one which arrived more than five minutes late. This particularly struck me as odd, as when I used to commute by train from to Manchester just a few years ago, I tracked at least 25% of my trains as being late. The latest train was 1.5 hours late (going from Manchester), constantly being updated as being 15 minutes late... then another 15 minutes... I was about to bite the bullet and pay for a taxi as it showed up.

rasz 4y ago

News https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-63028118 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-63028118 Labour commits to renationalisation of the railways. Shadow Teansport Sec: “Labour in power will bring our railways back into public ownership as contracts expire.” Looks like someone finally noticed there is something very wrong with John Majors railways privatization.

vincent-manis 4y ago

My UK rail experience is about 15 years out of date, and mostly focused on commuter trains (with some London<->Manchester travel). I rapidly discovered that timetables were artful fictions, but that if there were supposed to be 4 trains per hour on a certain run, there typically would be 4 trains...just not the ones in the timetable. I craved a job in the Excuses Department of South-West Trains, who were responsible for announcements such as “The 19:41 train to London Waterloo will now arrive at 20:23, because of a crew member joining the train late in Portsmouth.” The creativity of these announcements was amazing. That said, I relied on the train service while I was in the UK. I can only think of one time that it ground to a halt, during a snowstorm that paralyzed the country.