Your perception of rail travel in the UK?

[teuchter]

People's experience of rail travel in this country seems to vary rather widely. Some reckon it's pretty good on the whole; some reckon it's pretty bad and some reckon it's abysmal. It's hard to get a grasp of what people think of as "good" though. How much in the way of delays or overcrowding is reasonable to expect? It's difficult to know what to benchmark it against. Some folk will compare it to pre-privatisation days; others will suggest that comparison is a little rose-tinted.

Anyway, for various reasons I've been doing a fair bit of travelling around over the last few weeks and have taken the opportunity to record every journey I made over a two-week period, and the problems that did or didn't occur on those journeys.

What I would be interested to know is: how does this compare to your general experience of train travel in the UK? Better or worse than you would expect?

I have left out specific details of the routes/places to avoid people making specific comparisons with journeys they make. The question is how this compares with your general experience, across the country as a whole. My travels are spread over a relatively large geographical area.


Journey 1: Provincial town to major city. Train >25yrs old but clean. Got seat ok; train fairly full. Arrived on time.

Journey 2: Major city to major city. Train <10 yrs old; clean. Got seat ok; plenty of free seats. Arrived about 15mins late.

Journey 3: Major city to small town. Train <10years old; clean. Fairly empty. Arrived on time.

Journey 4: Small town to major city. Train <10years old; clean. Fairly empty. Arrived on time. Bloke in carriage got done for fare dodging by inspectors.

Journey 5: Major city to provincial town. Should have been one through train without changes. Disrupted by industrial action. A bus substitution was offered (to halfway point on journey) but only one bus showed up and there was not enough space for everyone; those of us who didn't manage to get onto that bus got told to wait for next one (two hrs later). Decided to take alternative route by rail to halfway point: two trains with 1hr connection. Both trains with adequate seats and in good condition. Arrived at halfway point; another bus substitution offered to final destination. Bus departed c. 45 mins late. Arrival at destination c. 3hrs later than original timetabled time.

Journey 6: Provincial town to large provincial centre. Bus substitution for first part of journey due to planned engineering works (adding 30mins to usual journey time). Second part of journey by slightly grotty train, >30yrs old. Arrived on time according to revised timetable.

Journey 7: Large provincial centre to major city. Train <10yrs old, adequate space, clean, arrived on time.

Journey 8: Major city to small provincial town. Required two trains with 45mins connection.
- First train: Overcrowded (people and bags in aisles and around doors). Had to stand for first 30mins. People still standing or sitting on bags until 1hr into journey. People also standing for final 30mins. Train <10yrs old and reasonably clean.
- Second train: overcrowded with people standing for the first 30mins of journey; plenty of space after that. One of the two toilets out of order. Train <10yrs old and clean. Arrived on time.

Journey 9: Large town to large town. Required two trains.
- First train: quite full but still with some seats available. Reasonably clean. Train >25yrs old but recently refurbished. Arrived about 5 mins late.
- Second train: plenty of seats. Clean. Train >25yrs old. Arrived on time.

 

[Roadkill]

It's pretty much as I'd expect most of the time.

A few recent journeys spring to mind:

1. London-Exeter and back with First Great Western a couple of weeks ago. Trains in both directions were on time and neither was very full. I don't like FGW's refurbished 125s though: the seats are comfy and there's sufficient legroom but there aren't enough tables, the seats don't line up with the windows, the high backs and high density make them feel a bit claustrophobic and I don't like the decor. On a couple of occasions I've got chatting to on-train staff and remarked that the refurb's not an improvement, and on both occasions they've agreed. That said, in terms of ride comfort, noise levels etc the 125s and 225s are way ahead of most other trains used on inter-city routes.

2. London-Hull and back, a couple of months ago. NXEC and connection up, Hull Trains back. Outward journey was fine, although pretty busy, which is the norm on NXEC trains these days IME. Rather than using a Northern Rail local train from Doncaster to Hull I hopped on a late-running Hull Trains service: fine, except the air-conditioning had failed and it was uncomfortably hot. Return journey left on time, but the air-con was again giving trouble and one carriage had to be closed off because of the heat (it was a very hot day), making the remaining carriages a bit crowded. Also, half the buffet equipment had broken down meaning no hot drinks and nothing chilled. We were a few minutes late reaching London. Hull Trains has slipped a bit in my estimation since First took it over: it's not as reliable, and the Adelante trains they're now using seem to be less reliable and are less comfortable than the previous class 222s.

3. London-East Grinstead and back, yesterday. Engineering works meant rail-replacement buses for part of the journey, which is a minor irritant. Rest of the journey fine, although some trains were pretty busy. All on time.

4. (edited to add) London to Birmingham with Chiltern Trains, in August. The West Coast Main Line was closed so the Chiltern line was very busy. Aside from that it was what I'd expect of Chiltern: a relatively basic service compared to the WCML and considerably slower, but punctual, reliable and good value for money, although less so since recent fare hikes.

5. South London commuter services. No point in listing particular journeys as I use them so much. Usually they're fine, although the rush hour is best avoided unless you like standing with your nose in someone's sweaty armpit. Punctuality is pretty good and the trains are perfectly adequate for the job: my only real gripe is that Sunday services aren't frequent enough round my way. However, crap co-ordination between (I presume) TfL and Network Rail meant that this weekend both the railway line through Greenwich and Charlton and the Jubilee Line were shut. That is a bit silly.

 

[agricola]

Aside from short hops on the suburban lines into and out of London, my main use of the train is between Marylebone and Wrexham on the W+S. I would like to think the rest of the network is as good, but I doubt it very much.

 

[Idaho]

Rail travel in the UK would be excellent value if it was a third the price. I think it is massively overpriced. £200+ to go from Exeter to London return? £35 one way from Exeter to Castle Cary?

 

[gentlegreen]

I can't afford to travel by train. And having to shop around for tickets is disgraceful.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Commute every day in rush hours and they're usually fine. Modern, clean trains with air con for the summer. Always get a seat both ways and usually more or less on time. Only real moan is the cost, £180 a month.

For the above I take a fold up bike to Waterloo. However I've done me leg in and can't cycle, so the past week it's been 3 trains to get to Victoria, all 3 I have to stand up in conditions that would be illegal for animals to be transported in. Leg should be up for cycling by the end of the week, can't wait.

 

[DotCommunist]

so expensive I jump it where possible.

 

[King Biscuit Time]

Rail travel in the UK would be excellent value if it was a third the price. I think it is massively overpriced. £200+ to go from Exeter to London return? £35 one way from Exeter to Castle Cary?

This ^


There's just no way that a journey that takes 3hrs in a car and costs £40 worth of petrol should cost £85 by train. It's more than double the price, even if you travel alone. If there are two of you then its eight times the price.

I'd swallow for the cramped conditions, surly staff, boiling hot carriages and they stupid fucking woman reciting the name of every hot beverage available (applies to Virgin Trains only), if they charged a fair price. They don't.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

I travel fairly regularly by train and I've found the services to be pretty reliable generally speaking, the stock is often in poor condition but the biggest bugbear is buying tickets - even with the recent simplifications of fare structures, it's still a complete lottery what fares are charged and what that means in terms of when you can travel. In Birmingham last week, my partner and I were forced to wait for 30 minutes for our scheduled service because that was what are tickets restricted us to and watch, frustrated, as the earlier service departed with many seats still available. Our service, otoh, was rammed to the gills with people in the vestibule areas and the aisles (altho we did get seats due to our reservations).

 

[weltweit]

Whenever I have to use it I am amazed at how high the prices are.

Its FLIPPING EXPENSIVE to travel by Train!

 

[QueenOfGoths]

The service from Paddington to Maidenhead is generally very good, I can almost always guarantee a seat and the trains are mostly on time.

However at £3088.00 for an annual season ticket it sodding well should be

 

[weltweit]

If there is more than one of you in a Car it is always cheaper ..

If you have a carfull of 4 people its miles CHEAPER!

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Agreed.

The service itself is fine but the prices are now absolutely preposterous. I've taken to driving up to see my family in Cleethorpes rather than take the train as it takes a little more time but costs the same and is door to door with no possibility of a fucking bus from Doncaster.

It feels completely wrong to me to do this as the train should be the better option but when the journey costs the thick end of £80, it's just not any more.

 

[teuchter]

I'm slightly surprised to see 4 people so far voting "much worse than I'd expect".

 

[doddles]

problems with trains in the UK:

1. cost
2. overcrowding
3. scheduled bloody engineering
4. last-minute platform announcements followed by mad dash to the train
5. pay toilets in train stations
6. closed toilets in train stations

Some Dutch visitors recently thought it was hilarious that to open the door on a FGW-Reading express train, you had to first open the window, then reach outside and pull the outside latch. What century are we in again?

 

[quimcunx]

With actual timings and seats and cleanliness I only have issue with toilets being shut or filthy sometimes, and with being too hot or too cold, or too cold down one side. overcrowding is occasionally a problem when leaving london though I do get stressed if I can't just find a seat and have that for the whole journey. Having to scour the train for a seat or swap every couple of stations is a pain.

My main jib is ticket prices. If you need to travel at shortish notice it can be debilitatingly expensive. Either you have to swallow it even though you can't afford it, or you have to go without. It just isn't possible to arrange everything 3 months ahead and travel at crappy times all the time. And even then having to track back and forth and back and forth through the booking sites to find a decent deal is frustrating in the extreme.

 

[chainsaw cat]

I'm slightly surprised to see 4 people so far voting "much worse than I'd expect".

I only like trains because (a) they take me to nice places and (b) I can read the paper.

The coppers get really narky if you do that in a car.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Overall impression: shit.

Considering we're supposed to be one of the most developed countries on the planet, and given that we're a small island with a fairly mild, temperate climate so it's not like having to install or maintain the infrastructure that spans from Beijing to Tibet or Xinjiang (about three days by train, involving the world's highest altitude train service across a glacial plateau in the case of Tibet), or the Trans-Siberia railway, and you don't have those scorching hot during the day to sub-zero temperatures you do in desert regions... considering all that, our rail service has to rank as one of the worst in the world. And when you consider the bloody railway steam engine was invented in this country, it's f'ing lamentable how disgraceful our rail service is nowadays. And to add insult to injury it's too bloody expensive. And crowded. And unreliable.

Pants.

 

[Bakunin]

Dreadful, as a rule.

If I could drive then, on a lot of journeys, I certainly would. British trains are practically a standing joke all over Europe, more so than British weather used to be in fact. Cramped, dirty, too hot or too cold, uncomfortable, overcrowded and way too expensive in relation to the standard of service and travel you actually get.

Comparing the British and French rail networks would be like comparing catshit with cream.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Short distance, it's been pretty good to me apart from the morning comute. Long distance it has fucked up way too many times. As I tend to go away for the weekend if I am going long distance I'm always coming back on a Sunday, when there is always some over running rail works and a fucked up service (that wasn't advertised).
It's also way too fuucking expensive.

 

[cybertect]

I only like trains because (a) they take me to nice places and (b) I can read the paper.

The coppers get really narky if you do that in a car.

What? Cops don't like you driving to nice places?

 

[Roadkill]

Some Dutch visitors recently thought it was hilarious that to open the door on a FGW-Reading express train, you had to first open the window, then reach outside and pull the outside latch. What century are we in again?

Those carriages are thirty years old and some of their features are a bit dated. To be fair, though, they and the updated version (with electric doors) used on the East Coast Main Line are still among the most comfortable carriages on the network.

*e2a* It's one thing that does frustrate me, actually: a lot of newer designs introduced for long-distance services just aren't very good. I have the Voyagers and Adelantes in mind, both of which are completely unsuitable for long-distance journeys. Worse, we're set for more of this since the government and rail industry are ploughing ahead with the Intercity Express Project, which is going to replace the excellent but elderly InterCity 125s with yet more cramped, noisy, hard-riding multiple units. In my personal opinion the IEP should be scrapped forthwith and instead they should simply re-start production of the BR MkIV coach, updated as necessary, and introduce either updated or entirely new designs of diesel and electric locos to haul them. I'd be prepared to bet that that would achieve most of what's expected of the IEP but more quickly and far more cheaply.

 

[Mitre10]

Crap and stupidly expensive.

Have to go to Nottingham on 27th November (over a month and a half away). Price going up, not too bad - £17.
Price coming back on Sunday 29th - Over £40 with the joy of 2 changes and a 4.5hr journey due to engineering works. Add on travel to the station at either end and thats over 6hrs and another £6 in tube/bus fares.

So about £70 in total for the train & other public transport to/from the stations.

I can do the same journey of 130 miles each way in my car, 2.5hrs each way for about £40 total in petrol.

Would prefer to take the train but as it is cheaper, easier and quicker to take the car that'll be the way I'm going.

Fuck knows what the price would be if I wanted to travel any sooner than 7 weeks in the future...

 

[DRINK?]

From commuting with Southern Rail.

1) Many passengers are too stupid to figure out that blowing your nose can significantly reduce the need to gruesomely sniff every twenty seconds. Said passengers (usually beak-heads convalescing from the weekend) are also not ashamed of gruesomely sniffing every twenty seconds.

2) Many passengers are too stupid to deduce that listening to crap DOFF DOFF DOFF music (or any, really, but much more so with the DOFF DOFF) on maximum volume is certain to cause long term damage to the ear drums, and short term damage to the bridge of the nose, from me, when I finally snap and can take no more. Said passengers also have no shame about the quality of the shit they are listening to and the fact that it is clearly annoying everyone in a twenty foot radius. Such blatant disregard for fellow passengers is utterly ignored by Southern staff.

3) Presumably because of the above, Southern Rail presumably believes 100% of its customer base to be complete morons who are unable to ascertain for themselves when to alight/board, despite having done the journey a thousand times, or they wouldn't have robotised announcements every ten seconds (which are completely unnecessary anyway as they are always followed by a human riff on the same theme). Note that passengers are apparently too thick to decide for themselves when to start using the toilet or wipe their arse, too, since this process is also overly (and sinisterly) narrated by a distant female ancestor of HAL 9000.

4) If a service (this word is used in the loosest possible sense of the word) is running late, Southern will not attempt to make up any lost time by bypassing the obligatory 10 minute stop at Eastbourne on the way to Brighton. No, instead, the train will be cancelled, and passengers forced to get a slower train to Brighton instead. What's that? They'll be late for work, you say? Well, f*ck them.

5) Using the techniques first envisioned by the Gestapo in World War Two, papers must be checked at least four times on each journey. And if you're unfortunate to be travelling from Brighton to Ashford on the way home from work in the evening, you'll be woken up from your depressed slumber to show your ticket on TWO different occasions, as there is a shift change at Eastbourne. Yes, that's in addition to the barriers at each end. My advice is to superglue the fucker to your forehead, that way you can get some shut-eye.

6) Southern trains are NOT environmentally friendly or "clean", they run on diesel and emit more black smoke than a rampaging Martian Fighting Machine each time they stop at a station, meaning the rails are nothing more than an enforced guideline to reduce driver training time and cut more costs.

7) In this high-tech world of modern telecommunications, Southern are completely stuck in the era of Thomas the Tank Engine. If your connecting train is late, drivers are unable (or perhaps unwilling, or both) to inform other trains of this, meaning they will happily steam on away as you arrive on the same platform, in full view. Similarly, there are always at least 3 or 4 spare pricks standing around who haven't a clue as to what is going on with your delayed service when you ask them. I'm glad my money is being wisely and intelligently re-invested.

8) The moulded-bucket like seats are actually designed to be uncomfortable and cause back complaints - passengers will be relieved when there are no seats and are forced to stand (which is more often than not).

9) Ticket costs continue to rise as service levels continue to drop, on a consistent inversely proportionate rate. This means, in ten years time, customers will have to take a 2nd mortgage out just to listen to platform announcements.

10) There are more suicides on the Southern rail line than anywhere else in the World. Combined. The above may be a factor

 

[ovaltina]

Delays and cancellations are very common... you need zen-like patience to be a commuter. But the same goes for driving.

 

[quimcunx]

*e2a* It's one thing that does frustrate me, actually: a lot of newer designs in use on the railways just aren't very good. With the partial exception of the Pendolino, .

Those overhead shelves are RUBBISHLY small.


When I was in Germany and that the seats in front had a footrest you could pull out. I'd like to see that here for us poor, unfortunate short arses.

 

[teuchter]

Dreadful, as a rule.

If I could drive then, on a lot of journeys, I certainly would. British trains are practically a standing joke all over Europe, more so than British weather used to be in fact. Cramped, dirty, too hot or too cold, uncomfortable, overcrowded and way too expensive in relation to the standard of service and travel you actually get.

Comparing the British and French rail networks would be like comparing catshit with cream.

From your post it appears that your general perception of rail travel is that it will be pretty bad, and yet you answer in the poll that what I describe in my OP is "much worse than you would expect". I don't really get it because what I describe isn't exactly a glowing account but to me it's not a description of an absolutely atrocious experience. Is it that you haven't understood the question, or are your expectations unrealistically high?

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Me and Blind lemon use trains. Apart from coaches (nd sod that for a game of soldiers) we have no choice as we can't drive. I like trains but they are generally too expensive in the UK. The best train journey we ever did was from St Pancras to Osnabrück. More expensive than a plane but infinitely nicer.

 

[dessiato]

My perception is that it is very expensive, unreliable and not worth the hassle compared to renting a car and just going where and when I need. However, this summer I travelled from London to York on Grand Central and was amazed at how good it was. We even got a free coffee and an apology for having to wait outside York due to arriving early. From my experience I would recommend them.

 

[ethel]

i think you should change this to GB. the NI trains are a laughing stock.