OK - time to come clean about having a bit of a hidden agenda with this thread.
Here is my OP but with the specific journeys identified:
Journey 1: Lille to Paris (TGV). Train >25yrs old but clean. Got seat ok; train fairly full. Arrived on time.
Journey 2: Paris to Lyon(TGV). Train <10 yrs old; clean. Got seat ok; plenty of free seats. Arrived about 15mins late.
Journey 3: Lyon to Firminy. Train <10years old; clean. Fairly empty. Arrived on time.
Journey 4: Firminy to Lyon. Train <10years old; clean. Fairly empty. Arrived on time. Bloke in carriage got done for fare dodging by inspectors.
Journey 5: Lyon to Bourg St Maurice. 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: Bourg St Maurice to Grenoble. 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: Grenoble to Lyon. Train <10yrs old, adequate space, clean, arrived on time.
Journey 8: Lyon to Aurillac via Clermont Ferrand. 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: Limoges to Lille via Paris. 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 (TGV): plenty of seats. Clean. Train >25yrs old. Arrived on time.
I often hear people grumbling about how bad our trains are in the UK, and it's not uncommon for them to come out with the old cliche of how much better they are in France. A couple of comments along these lines on this thread:
Comparing the British and French rail networks would be like comparing catshit with cream.
our rail service has to rank as one of the worst in the world
The thing is that I've done quite a lot of rail travel on the continent and although many countries do manage certain things much better than we do, my overall impression is that our railways aren't all that bad really. Recently I was in France for a couple of weeks and was interested to see how things compared, particularly away from the TGV network.
Obviously my experiences are what they happened to be in those two weeks, and if I'd gone for a different two weeks I might have had an overall better or worse experience. But my general impression was that away from the TGV, things really weren't much better than they are here. The level of disruption and lateness was about the same as what I'd tend to expect in the UK. As for connections and travel times - I'd venture that these may actually be better in the UK. There were some journeys that took quite a bit of time compared to what I'd expect for similar mileages here, and some of the rural lines have a very sparse service indeed. Getting across country (rather than on the radial routes to and from Paris) can be quite hard work.
The exception is of course the TGV, which is great (as long as where you want to go is on a TGV route). Although it's worth commenting that on TGV and certain other long-distance trains, reservation is compulsory, which means they are never overcrowded but on the other hand you can't always travel when you want to, and can't just turn up at a station assuming you can get on the next train.
Looking at the poll results, 42% of people seem to agree with me (at least based on what I described) that there isn't much difference in quality of service between France and the UK. Surprisingly 46% appear to think that what I described is worse than what they'd expect in the UK. Including 26% who think it is "much worse" than what they'd get in the UK - although I suspect there are some folk in there who haven't read the question properly.
It's pretty obvious that the cost is the biggest complaint. I would be interested to do a thorough comparison of French/British train fares some time when I am particularly bored, because I have a hunch that the difference isn't quite as great as people assume. I'll leave that for another day though.
