Train rants

shifty_uk

shifty_uk

shifty_uk

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In the past, whenever i heard anyone moaning about trains being delayed or services being messed up, id just think 'give it a rest, surely it cant be that bad or just get an earlier train if its always late' but getting public transport for the past 3 months has been an absolute joke, trains are always late during rush hour, generally by over 10 minutes. I thought id give it time - maybe ScotRail was having a bad month or two but now its just getting beyond a joke!

Whats the deal? Is it like this up and down the country? The amount im forking out on train fairs and the amount of time at work lost, id be just aswell buying a city centre car park season ticket and petrol prices.

/rant
 
I use to do exactly the same, even avoiding taking a job in a city centre based office last year to avoid public transport - at the same time though, i thought the situation was exaggerated. Its not, they're absolutely hellish. Im amazed, for all the years ive heard people ranting, Scotrail(in this case) haven't came up with a solution!
 
shifty_uk said:
In the past, whenever i heard anyone moaning about trains being delayed or services being messed up, id just think 'give it a rest, surely it cant be that bad or just get an earlier train if its always late' but getting public transport for the past 3 months has been an absolute joke, trains are always late during rush hour, generally by over 10 minutes. I thought id give it time - maybe ScotRail was having a bad month or two but now its just getting beyond a joke!

Whats the deal? Is it like this up and down the country? The amount im forking out on train fairs and the amount of time at work lost, id be just aswell buying a city centre car park season ticket and petrol prices.

/rant
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well now that it affects you, why should I care? "Give it a rest" you selfish person.
 
shifty_uk said:
Whats the deal? Is it like this up and down the country?
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Yes, it really is shocking - every time I've had to take the train in the last couple of months, there's been a problem, and I've been delayed by upwards of 30 minutes - on the plus side, I've had a few "free" journeys out of it (30-59 mins late you get a refund* of 50% of your ticket price, 59+ mins you get a 100% refund*).

It's still a complete waste of time however. I had to get a train from Newbury to Birmingham last Weds.

It took me 90mins and ~£20 of petrol to drive there, warm and comfortable in my car, my own music as loud as I wanted, no smelly peasants to have to share with, door to door service, and leaving whenever it was convenient for me.

Getting the train back meant sitting on a cold, wet, windy platform for 45 minutes, then sitting in a cold draughty cramped train with insufficient legroom, sitting on another cold and windy platform for 20 minutes, another cramped train with no legroom for 2 hours, train being diverted and missing my stop because of a "technical fault", standing around New Street for an hour to get another train back to where I actually needed to be, and then a 35 minute walk in the rain to get back to my house.

So a total journey time of ~5 hours on the train (plus the 45 minutes waiting at the first station), at a cost of £25...

*The "refunds" are actually given in rail vouchers, so you can only use them if you wish to repeat the awful experience you've had by getting on another train. You also can't use them online, so have to pay inflated ticket costs at the station, and you can't use them towards season tickets (which is a bit of a ****take really...)
 
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shifty_uk said:
I use to do exactly the same, even avoiding taking a job in a city centre based office last year to avoid public transport - at the same time though, i thought the situation was exaggerated. Its not, they're absolutely hellish. Im amazed, for all the years ive heard people ranting, Scotrail(in this case) haven't came up with a solution!
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Why would they bother trying to improve the service? Scotrail have no competition and therefore, have no incentive to provide a decent service. The public will use them regardless. Thank the Tories for privatising the railways.
 
Getting a train into london is a nightmare, have got the train every weekday for years and i have got a seat no more than 10 times. It's always heavily packed in all carriages, i dread to think how bad it is towards the front, i try to go avoid it as much as i can.

I know its easier said than done to stick a few more cars on the end (baring in mind this is a 10 car train) but if 10 cars are packed to the brim then surely they could do something about it. Its just a tad annoying im paying around the £150 mark a month, just to stand up the whole time.

Im never usually late though. Only ~10minutes or so. But sometimes they cancel the trains on such short notice.
 
K-2 said:
Why would they bother trying to improve the service? Scotrail have no competition and therefore, have no incentive to provide a decent service. The public will use them regardless. Thank the Tories for privatising the railways.
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Just lol
 
Here in Coventry the Trains are just as bad, this morning my train was 12 minutes late. Luckily I plan my morning to take in for this delay, also my work is quite relaxed about it and don't mind if I was late, aslong as it wasn't every day. So when the trains are 20 minutes + late I don't have to panic.

As for trains home, at about half 5 to half 6 it's usually delayed, if by only a few minutes. Once or twice it has been delayed an hour just to be cancelled. Sometimes due to some one hugging the rails in their morning daydreams it has been delayed a good few hours, I can understand this as there is a lot to sort out. However my main issue is the lack of support / provisions of alternative travel in these situations. I have been told that due to a train being 'delayed' and not 'cancelled' they do not need to provide a bus service / alternative transport (Not sure if this is bull or not, so hopefully some one can confirm) which has meant that a taxi has to be taken at my own expense, ontop of the cost of the ticket for that day.
 
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My favourite part (correct me if I am wrong) is that "train operators are entitled to compensation for delays as short as five minutes but passengers can normally only claim compensation if the service is more than 30 minutes late."

Been noting down arrival time of my daily commute train all year but I have since moved. SE are so casual with their 5-10 minute delays. Another annoyance is the slow speed of communication between stations and information boards. I am convinced the Sidcup line is riddled with broken trains as it was always been affected by broken down trains.
 
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I really dislike everything about the train service. Staff are generally rude, the service is generally poor (delays, cancellations etc), it costs more than it would in fuel to use a car, passenger space is under provisioned etc etc.

The thing is, other than the staff being unpleasant, I can completely understand the other short comings and therefore just try to avoid it.
 
With my current commute my train in the morning is late about once every 3 months on average. My train in the evening is a little local service which tends to get delayed by other longer distance services running late on the same line ... hence is late most days by up to ~6mins. This is over the last 6 years. The train in the evening we normally chat with the conductor the whole way.

My old commute (which I did for another 6 years) involved two 30mins train journeys with a change in the middle. This was generally fine most days but the problem with it was that over time the timetables shifted until the connection time dropped to a point where it wasn't normally achievable.
 
>Scotrail

Found your problem there.

Then again, the only line I've heavily used was the West Coast Mainline from Preston to London and back, and never had a problem with Virgin. Staff were always polite, and one old dear working the catering car even told me to get some sleep and woke me up when we came into London (it was a night train and I had been up from 4am doing an assignment!). Gotten the train between Preston and Burnley as well back when I was in uni, and that wasn't too bad (Northern Rail iirc).

Never getting a train from London to Cambridge though, five times I used it, and four of those it was late, shoddy service, and the carriges were manky and dirty :o First Capital Connect it was, according to Wiki.
 
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When I worked in the Leeds area I had regular problems with GNER and Virgin trains. I have moved and haven't had the need to use public transport since.
 
It's the same bullcrap with buses. Nothing ever runs on time due to over-tight schedules and extreme savings on personnel and planning.
 
Sounds familiar, no one used to believe me when I was late for work due to the trains, and some of the excuses they used to come up with were shockingly unbelievable, which made it even worse.

Haven't been on a train for years other than heading into London or Eurotunnel, and I have no interest in getting on one again unless I desperately need to.
 
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