3 ms·

Expensive (London to Manchester 80 pounds, composed to 15 by coach), mostly always delayed and not getting any better apart from the two or so lines Virgin runs

by tarkin2 11y ago

Expensive (London to Manchester 80 pounds, composed to 15 by coach), mostly always delayed and not getting any better apart from the two or so lines Virgin runs which are super nice (but which are very expensive). France's trains seem futuristic in comparison. Germany's are super puctural and great value. Germany's nationalised rail company, DB, who now own Arriva, are servicing some of UK's lines, I see now. The private UK system is helping to fund the puplic German system, heh.

lorenzhs 11y ago
Apart from all the Arriva-branded services, several train operators in the UK belong to Arriva (CrossCountry, Chiltern, and Grand Central Railway). Also, on the freight side of the railway business, DB own EWS (which is now called "DB Schenker Rail (UK)"). Since DB is fully state-owned, parts of Britain's railway system are state-owned again, but by the German rather than the British state :D But to defend rail travel in the UK, advance tickets are much cheaper (I don't think I ever paid more than £25 between London and Leicester, maybe £15 on average, but then I didn't use the peak trains), but do require planning ahead. If you're lucky you can even snag a first class advance ticket for less than £3 more than standard, which is quite nice (tea! biscuits! juice!). Railcards are also quite affordable (certainly more so than DB's BahnCard) and amortise rather quickly, even more so when considering that you can have the Railcard discount applied to your Oyster Card. All in all, I was quite positively surprised given all the negative things I heard beforehand.
DanBC 11y ago
You can get london to manchester for £15 by train. You just need to book in advance. The fare structure is bizarrely complex and it's hard to knkw how much a journey is goin to cost until you get actually buy a ticket. http://imgur.com/79PAXiq http://imgur.com/79PAXiq

by tarkin2 11y ago

lorenzhs 11y ago

Apart from all the Arriva-branded services, several train operators in the UK belong to Arriva (CrossCountry, Chiltern, and Grand Central Railway). Also, on the freight side of the railway business, DB own EWS (which is now called "DB Schenker Rail (UK)"). Since DB is fully state-owned, parts of Britain's railway system are state-owned again, but by the German rather than the British state :D But to defend rail travel in the UK, advance tickets are much cheaper (I don't think I ever paid more than £25 between London and Leicester, maybe £15 on average, but then I didn't use the peak trains), but do require planning ahead. If you're lucky you can even snag a first class advance ticket for less than £3 more than standard, which is quite nice (tea! biscuits! juice!). Railcards are also quite affordable (certainly more so than DB's BahnCard) and amortise rather quickly, even more so when considering that you can have the Railcard discount applied to your Oyster Card. All in all, I was quite positively surprised given all the negative things I heard beforehand.

DanBC 11y ago

You can get london to manchester for £15 by train. You just need to book in advance. The fare structure is bizarrely complex and it's hard to knkw how much a journey is goin to cost until you get actually buy a ticket. http://imgur.com/79PAXiq http://imgur.com/79PAXiq