Trains/Rail Network

[ttaskmaster]

I think London is probably the only place it wouldn't work due to the already vast tube network stretching across the wider outskirts of London.
Certainly for other cities it would.

A few guys commute here to Reading, from Milton Keynes. 3hrs 40 minutes, on average, they say.

With all due respect that quite clearly is not a normal 'commute'.

Give or take...
Reading is very much a commuter town, now, with 3 park and rides, as well as 'super-fast' public transport routes to various towns, cities and airports.
If you work at the Bank of England, you're looking at about 2½hrs commute, each way.
It should be slightly faster during rush hours, but the crowds and increased road traffic not only negate that but actually add more time... and that's wthout any incidents like roadworks, accidents, suicides or cancelled services.

The official definition of 'commute' is to travel some distance to work. By some, I believe they mean a notable amount.
In 2017, the average UK commute went up from 48 minutes to over an hour, with 1 in 7 travelling for more than two hours. The UK also had the longest commutes in Europe.

So whilst that is not the average commute, it's not exactly abnormal, either. Circumstances can stack to make it pretty normal, as well. For over a year the A33 and M4 were clogged up due to 'road improvement' works, to the point where I'd almost forgotten how to find 3rd gear.
As is, I live within a 10 minute drive of my base office with clear roads. During rush hour that will take at least 50 minutes as standard, unless the kids are on holiday... and if there's roadworks, or a crash on the M4, or if drivers are just being dicks, it can easily become 2 hours.

I'd imagine most office workers do a train into a London terminal, followed by either a bus or tube (or a couple).

I also imagine the vast majority of office workers do not live within 5 minutes walk of the town or city centre, too, which often means driving or getting public transport to their local station. When I lived in Watford, that was about 35 minutes drive, and much more if you had to use the bus. Living in Ricky, it was over an hour.

I work in the West End and just in our team know people that commute in from Kent, Worthing, Denham... all around the edges of London.

My father-in-law commuted from Kent, too. Hour and a half, give or take, and that's five minutes walk from the Paddock Wood station... Denham would be the same.
Those living in Ashford, Kent, could be looking at over 3hrs for the same destination, however...

Besides, just because we all know some crazy individual who commutes for 3½ hours each way doesn't mean we should all do it...

I don't think nationalisation is the answer (not in the UK at least)

If things went back exactly the way they were, then perhaps... There were a lot more local routes, which subsidised the main ones we have today and made public transport far more viable. Upon privatisation, the new owning companies shut down the less profitable local lines. You'd need to get them fixed up and reintegrated again before nationalisation could hope to work... but looking at our choices of leadership, I wouldn't trust them to wipe their own backsides, let alone rebuild a successful rail network.

 

[Semple]

More flexibility on pricing would also help matters. A monthly season ticket from my station to London is £408.20. That ticket is valid for 7 days. Now, I am lucky enough to now work from home three days a week, meaning I can rely on daily return tickets to save myself money. But when I was buying season tickets, I (and other commuters, I'm sure), would prefer the option of buying a ticket only valid on weekdays if it would lower cost. Similarly, parking charges - £6 a day to park at the station, something which many can't avoid doing. Why not offer significant discounts for anyone holding a valid ticket for the day they park?

Yep fair comments.

The one that always grinds my gears is the cost of single ticket costs about 99% of a return ticket. For the majority of stations on high-speed lines there should be enough footfall heading in either direction that the cost for a single ticket should be exactly half.

 

[mid_gen]

Do you believe that it will honestly be any better? That'll just be extortionately priced and poor quality just like the rest of the UK. We just need to sack everyone off and contract the Dutch to make it work, their entire public transport system is amazing when compared to ours and I believe most of it is nationalised?

Germany (Deutsche Bahn) already runs a big portion of our rail network and creams off profits from UK commuters to subsidise the German public rail network.

Mention this to Conservatives trying to frighten people into being scared of nationalisation, and they go very quiet and slink away without responding.

 

[R.P.L]

Rail is one of the few areas that I'm willing to consider nationalisation as a viable option because it's not really possible to have competition between private service providers, which means there's no incentive to improve or offer good value. Of course the flipside of that is that public services are prone to inefficiency because they're not run for profit, meaning that large amounts of taxpayers' money is wasted.
The only real solution would be for the people running the service (public or private) to actually give a ****, but if that day comes then I'd probably choose to take a flying pig to work.

 

[StriderX]

Maybe there’s a way to get the companies who employ the commuters to pay for the service rather than the commuter, ergo connecting the prosperity of both the train company and the recipient company together?

That would mean there’d be a desire to keep it smooth or find a better solution for their workers.

 

[The Funktopus]

Currently in Switzerland, and found myself stunned at just how good the railways and public transport in general is here. After much delay in getting here (thanks KLM ), I was dreading being able to get to where I am now, Winterthur by train, thinking that like the UK, the trains just stop altogether on a Sunday night, as I didn’t get out of Zurich airport until 23:30. Not a problem, trains running every 15 minutes or so, all night. Trains are punctual, much larger than those we have in the UK, and a lot cleaner and more modern. Stunned that you can also use the buses for free, as long as you stay within the same municipality. And again, cleaner, more modern and spot on when it comes to punctuality.

 

[Admiral Huddy]

|'ve been commuting for 30 year now. Yes there are occasionally problems but then again, there are equally problems with the roads. I got caught for nearly 2 hours last week on the A12 and last year I got caught on the M25 for 4 hours and missed a flight we had booked.

I don't get worked up about it anymore. I understand that both the roads and the railways are running well beyond their capacity. You only have to see the number of back-to-back trains passing thought my local station to realise there's just no room for any contingency. The populating is growing so what else do we expect.

My only fear is re-nationalisation. IMHO, it just won't work. bit of it will be farmed out to the private sector to cope with demands, so what use will that be.

 

[SeatIbiza]

How is MK to Reading 3hrs 40!? Google says 1hr 34 using Virgin to Paddington and then out from there on GWR...

I'm driving to west London tomorrow and then getting the train on Thursday (meeting in central) and for that single day it is £350 Kemble to Paddington plus then the underground, there are three of us going. Even at 45p per mile you're at about £100 in mileage, plus say £10 to park (it's not in the congestion zone). In reality, I'm actually using about £30 of fuel in a vehicle that could take 5 people. Meaning a return using the governments own 45p a mile is £20 a head with 5 or £33 for three in a nice Audi. A ticket is nearly up to 6 times that, for the pleasure to likely stand. Yes my car costs more than that to run, but I'm paying that no matter what, as are many other people and I'm in a much nicer environment that will take me from where I live to where I'm going and back and, to me, that has always been the fundemental problem with all public transport unless you happen to be in walking distance of the station (and the majority aren't).

Kemble/Swindon to London is a very, very popular route and I just don't get it. Yes the Cotswolds is nice, but moving out here to then travel back to London seems bonkers to me especially at a daily cost of over £100 return. It's not as if it is cheap to live out here (Swindon aside)...

 

[Scam]

Reading is very much a commuter town, now, with 3 park and rides, as well as 'super-fast' public transport routes to various towns, cities and airports.
If you work at the Bank of England, you're looking at about 2½hrs commute, each way.

Well it's funny you should pick Reading as an example because I used to commute from Newbury to the West End for a good few years (talking of costs - on minimum wage, no less). I'm sure I did about 2hrs door-to-door. 20min walk to the station, 55mins on the train, 20mins on the tube, 10min walk the other end is only 1hr45 on a very good day. If you go from Reading you're looking at what 30mins on the train but obviously it's a much bigger town so getting to the station is more difficult granted. On the tube it's probably another 25mins given fighting your way through Oxford Circus to the central line but I'd imagine it's more like 2hrs door-to-door.

My father-in-law commuted from Kent, too. Hour and a half, give or take, and that's five minutes walk from the Paddock Wood station... Denham would be the same.
Those living in Ashford, Kent, could be looking at over 3hrs for the same destination, however...

Besides, just because we all know some crazy individual who commutes for 3½ hours each way doesn't mean we should all do it...

No, exactly. Agreed.

My point about housing was just that it would be helped more than most people think, by improving our rail network. If you take my example of commuting from Newbury, let's imagine the service improves and it magically now takes 35mins on the train to Paddington, then a quick change to Crossrail - well I could get to work probably in 1hr door-to-door. I'd happily do that. Heck, it can take me just as long on the tube! But more importantly, if every 60min journey on the train was cut down to even say 45mins, and it was half the price - you'd get millions more people willing to do that and hence willing to commute and buy houses outside of London. Thus easing the pressures on housing in the city. And I'm only talking London, some of the commuter trains up north are just laughable. You get a converted bus that takes 1hr to do 30miles... sheesh...

 

[UTmaniac]

It will all be sorted within days, when JC gets the keys to No.10 on 13th December.

 

[Martynt74]

I don't get the trains anymore but i used to get one into the centre of Manchester and to be fair i'd say 90% were on time (less than 5 minutes late).

I imagine London is a bigger issue though due to the sheer volume of traffic coming in from all directions, it must be very easy for a small delay along the chain to have huge consequences.

 

[ttaskmaster]

if that day comes then I'd probably choose to take a flying pig to work.

Police helicopter??!!
Great, more taxpayer money being wasted...!!

How is MK to Reading 3hrs 40!? Google says 1hr 34 using Virgin to Paddington and then out from there on GWR...

I asked one of the guys where he lived (he calls it Whaddon) and calculated from there to our current location, just off the A33 along Imperial Way. I Googled and the best time I got, at rush hour, was 3hrs 46mins.
I only get under 2hrs if using a car...

Similarly, Reading to Maple Cross is almost 3 hrs by public transport... and only 45 mins by car. I can personally vouch for both of those!!

Well it's funny you should pick Reading as an example because I used to commute from Newbury to the West End for a good few years (talking of costs - on minimum wage, no less).

It's funny you should mention Reading, because I used to use the busses here... Half the time it was actually quicker to walk.

only 1hr45 on a very good day.

And what about a normal day?
What about a bad day?
What about a string of bad days?

If you go from Reading you're looking at what 30mins on the train but obviously it's a much bigger town so getting to the station is more difficult granted.

Unless you can afford to live that close to the station, yes you're looking at up to an hour quite easily... often longer. From J11 of the M4, up the A33 to the IDR, and then round to the station can easily be 90 minutes.
The advertised "30 minutes to London" assumes no speed restrictions, line works or anything, too.

you'd get millions more people willing to do that and hence willing to commute and buy houses outside of London.

You already have that.
Right now the local joint councils are trying to buy up all the farmland in our area, so they can bulldoze all the greenery and build 15,000 new houses. These will be more commuter homes, the prices of which will again force the local lot even further out. As is, we moved to a 'countryside property' because rent in Reading town was getting too high.
So yes, all the lovely rich people with London salaries will have lovely affordable new housing that the locals themselves can't afford.... and the councils/landlords get richer. Wonderful. Like I give a toss about any of them.

Commuting for 4-5 hours every day is fine if you don't give a **** about ever seeing your kids and live your life watching Farcebook videos on yer mobile... For most people, it's an insane way to stress yourself and waste your life.

 

[StriderX]

And people wonder why there’s a mental health crisis and people aren’t having kids...

 

[IvanDobskey]

Yup, it's hell alright I'm commuting to Cambridge so on the train two hours a day.
Overpriced, overcrowded and unreliable. Truly awful service. The alternative is the A14 though.....

 

[R.P.L]

And people wonder why there’s a mental health crisis and people aren’t having kids...

I shouldn't have to check but I feel compelled to - you are joking, right?

 

[StriderX]

I shouldn't have to check but I feel compelled to - you are joking, right?

No, I was going to leave it at that, but Jesus it would be truly depressing to never see your kids, or if you do it’s in exhaustion. That’s ignoring anxiety about the future as well.

 

[R.P.L]

No.

lol

 

[StriderX]

lol

I’m not saying it’s the sole reason, just one of many.

Otherwise productivity wouldn’t have stalled for the last decade, something is clearly wrong and it’s not just hurting individuals, it’s hurting companies too.

 

[Scam]

You already have that.

We're basically agreeing so I'm not treating this as an argument. But Reading is crazy expensive because of the very fact it is <30mins on the train to Paddington. My point is, if the train services improved then places like Newbury (and further out etc.) would be more achievable in terms of commuting to London. As it stands, it's only achievable for this mental-cases that want to spend that long doing it. tldr; improve the trains and people can live further out.

 

[SeatIbiza]

Yup, it's hell alright I'm commuting to Cambridge so on the train two hours a day.
Overpriced, overcrowded and unreliable. Truly awful service. The alternative is the A14 though.....

The alternative is finding a more local workplace? I used to work in London (the hellhole that is Edgware Road) and I'm now Cirencester, 5 min cycle to my new office. Much better!