Never been on a train before. Route planner?

Energize said:
The trains are a joke here, 4 hours 30 to get from Lancaster to Aberystwyth, but only 6 hours to get from Lancaster to Paris.
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What part of that is a joke, direct route, direct line, many thousands of people traveling all day long on the route, it gets more trains and more direct journey, a route that exponentially less people take, and less often, isn't on a direct line or on a main route and therefore needs(I'm assuming) a few transfers, a few waits for extra trains, a few stops to let other trains through, etc, etc.

A quick check shows it is one change and has 13 stops, having just come from Manchester to London, its a pretty damn quick journey with no stops after the first 20mins or so, and London through to Paris I think has no stops.

Each stop the train is slowing down, stopping for a couple mins, then speeding up again, it costs a lot of time. The fact you can get from A to B that quickly is impressive, not crap.
 
Thats nothing i know two people who never learned to ride a bicycle till they were 19 and the other one was 26. When i see the other girl (26 i still see her getting off her bike when she gets to a slope.
 
drunkenmaster said:
What part of that is a joke, direct route, direct line, many thousands of people traveling all day long on the route, it gets more trains and more direct journey, a route that exponentially less people take, and less often, isn't on a direct line or on a main route and therefore needs(I'm assuming) a few transfers, a few waits for extra trains, a few stops to let other trains through, etc, etc.

A quick check shows it is one change and has 13 stops, having just come from Manchester to London, its a pretty damn quick journey with no stops after the first 20mins or so, and London through to Paris I think has no stops.

Each stop the train is slowing down, stopping for a couple mins, then speeding up again, it costs a lot of time. The fact you can get from A to B that quickly is impressive, not crap.
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Good point, rubbish use of "exponential"
 
drunkenmaster said:
What part of that is a joke, direct route, direct line, many thousands of people traveling all day long on the route, it gets more trains and more direct journey, a route that exponentially less people take, and less often, isn't on a direct line or on a main route and therefore needs(I'm assuming) a few transfers, a few waits for extra trains, a few stops to let other trains through, etc, etc.

A quick check shows it is one change and has 13 stops, having just come from Manchester to London, its a pretty damn quick journey with no stops after the first 20mins or so, and London through to Paris I think has no stops.

Each stop the train is slowing down, stopping for a couple mins, then speeding up again, it costs a lot of time.
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This is exactly the bad design that is the joke, trains that are slow to accelerate and take ages to slow down with a million stops that are virtually unused and few direct lines.

The fact you can get from A to B that quickly is impressive, not crap.
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What's impressive about a train that takes longer to get to a destination than driving and costs loads more? :confused: It completely defeats the point in public transport.
 
I use thetrainline.com to find the trains, then look at which trains it's with, then go to their site to buy the tickets, as to avoid the "booking fee"
 
Energize said:
What's impressive about a train that takes longer to get to a destination than driving and costs loads more? :confused: It completely defeats the point in public transport.
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Hertfordshire to Plymouth by train: 4.5 hours and between £26 and £50 return (£50 is an open return). Car takes 4.5 hours and £40 in fuel each way...;)

London to Edinburgh: £70 return the day before (open return again) and 5 hours each way... Try doing that in a car... ;)

Get the point? If you want to go to some random station miles from a main line then you're a bit stuck for time, if you buy at the station then you get what you deserve (high prices on long journeys, you wouldn't turn up at an airport and ask for a ticket then complain about the price*). Main lines are usually called main lines for a reason, they are the ones that people use most, just like motorways. :p
 
Amp34 said:
Hertfordshire to Plymouth by train: 4.5 hours and between £26 and £50 return (£50 is an open return). Car takes 4.5 hours and £40 in fuel each way...;)

London to Edinburgh: £70 return the day before (open return again) and 5 hours each way... Try doing that in a car... ;)
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How about Lancaster to Aberystwyth 4.5hr by train 3.5hr by driving?
 
Doonhamer said:
Not sure why its so surprising when the uk has the largest region of Western Europe without any rail links. Ripped out decades ago to save money :rolleyes:
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This isn't really a thread about the state of the railways. He lives in stoke on trent where there are 15 departures to locations around the country in the next hour.
 
Energize said:
How about Lancaster to Aberystwyth 4.5hr by train 3.5hr by driving?
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Didn't read the rest of my post? There are obviously some places that take longer than by car, but then there are also plenty of places that take longer to get to than by car. Swings and roundabouts.

Bit like it can be quicker to fly to some places, train to others and walk to others.;)

Either way if there is one or two of you quite often it can be quicker and cheaper to go by rail...

Doonhamer said:
Not sure why its so surprising when the uk has the largest region of Western Europe without any rail links. Ripped out decades ago to save money :rolleyes:
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Where? Our train system goes to loads of places more than a lot of european systems, let alone American systems.
 
Amp34 said:
Didn't read the rest of my post? There are obviously some places that take longer than by car, but then there are also plenty of places that take longer to get to than by car. Swings and roundabouts.
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But it should always be faster and cheaper to go somewhere by train than car, this is my point. Otherwise people will not opt for public transport rendering it a waste of public money, if the rail system was ran properly we would be using modern trains like the Japanese and it wouldn't take 4.5 hours to travel a couple of hundred miles despite having a few stops along the line.
 
Energize said:
But it should always be faster and cheaper to go somewhere by train than car, this is my point. Otherwise people will not opt for public transport rendering it a waste of public money, if the rail system was ran properly we would be using modern trains like the Japanese and it wouldn't take 4.5 hours to travel a couple of hundred miles despite having a few stops along the line.
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Yet I bet it's still quicker to go by car to some places in Japan. It's just unfeasable to have a rail service that is always quicker than by car. TBH you're a bit unlucky really as Aber isn't particularly near anything else so I'm guessing takes a while on rubbish trains before getting to the mainline trains?
 
Lancaster is on the mainline, takes 2hr 30m to get to London. Then a change at Birmingham to get on the Aberystwyth train, totalling an unbelievable 4.5h despite being the exact same distance.
 
Yeah. Then you change at crewe (the one I saw), waiting an hour at the station (so on the train it's the same time as driving), either way Crewe>Aber is the long time period, and fancy that, it's not a main line. :p
 
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