Fed up with train disruptions

pc-guy

pc-guy

pc-guy

Soldato
Joined
29 May 2005
Posts
5,010
I am 50/50 in office and WFH, but since easement of lock down 2020 local train service (great northern/Thames Link) has been proper crap as the days I need to take the train, there are either cancellations or delays. Never had a day of smooth sailing.

So now I revert to cycling into work most of the time but the odd occasions I do need the train to get in.

And pretty much every time or close to that, I get hit with train strikes or issues on the line. The last 4 times I took the train, my services had been cut down to once every hour and today trains doesn’t even go to the station I need to go, so have to go on tube network added extra 30min to the journey and apparently the last train is 6pm.

What a joke of a service and why are we being charged full price for this crap?!

How the Union can justify these actions when their workers were paid furlough/full wages during lock down?!
 
I've used trains a few times recently and had no issues, quite enjoyable actually. But it wasn't during strikes, i can imagine that would be a real downer.
 
I used a train for the first time in years last week. And I mean years. Its the first time I've seen turnstile at a normal overground train stop! :D

It was horrible. The train (just 2 stops) was late. It was clammy and hot despite being nearly empty. It was slow.

Felt like the only improvement in years was those turnstiles. Which is for ticket evasion not passenger experience.
 
Just try taking a bike on a train.

I had to get a bike from Doncaster to Wolverhampton last year. That involved 3-4 different train companies all with different policies on bicycles and only 2 that you could actually book in advance.

Same issue when trying to get a ferry from Portsmouth. You can guarantee your bike on the trains from Birmingham to London, but not during rush hour (even though the trains have specific compartments for bikes), and you can't guarantee at bike on trains from London to Portsmouth at any time, so it's just luck of the draw which may end up with you missing your ferry.

That being said, it's not much better in France. Using local trains (since most TGVs don't allow bikes) I think I needed 7 different ones to get southern Germany.
 
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could be worse, my nearest train station is 35+ minute drive away and when you finally get in it then it goes about 28 mph so about the speed of a 50cc moped
 
Raymond Lin said:
I would just get a cheap runner for those occasion, sure....not good for the environment but just have to live with that over losing your sanity in getting the train.
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Absolutely no way I could handle using trains. As soon as you get two people car is definitely cheaper. It's a shame trains are so expensive and so bad. But that's the UK I guess. (I know a lot. Of other countries are just as bad)

If I had choice between losing a kidney forever or car? Kidney!
 
Even without the strikes the trains are miserable a lot of the time as there aren't enough of them, and they're usually packed way beyond full.*

It's worth noting that one of the reasons the unions are striking is because the train operators actively want to make things worse for the users, things like "getting rid of ticket booths" so they can "reassign some of the staff elsewhere" because "most people don't buy them there any more" means removing the one place on the station where you can be pretty much guaranteed to find a member of staff, and the one place that someone who cannot use the "mobile" app to buy their tickets go get them reliably, and you can get assistance as a disabled person on the day, or find a staff member if you feel threatened etc.
It also does away with the ability to actually get advice on the best ticket to buy, which oddly enough means the operators are likely to make more money from people buying more expensive tickets than they need, then there is the thing where the ticket machines in some stations are exceptionally unreliable.

I would also point out that the staff getting paid during furlough has nothing to do with cost of living, or years of wage increases that for the likes of station staff have often barely kept up with inflation, and IIRC many of those staff kept working during lockdowns in order to maintain the rail network and enable essential workers to get to work.

*is there even a legal "maximum" for a train carriage? I've been in a few where the Sardine union would have gone on strike due to over crowding.
 
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413x said:
Absolutely no way I could handle using trains. As soon as you get two people car is definitely cheaper. It's a shame trains are so expensive and so bad. But that's the UK I guess. (I know a lot. Of other countries are just as bad)

If I had choice between losing a kidney forever or car? Kidney!
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I used to commute between Hereford and Birmingham New Street for 6 years, seen my share of problems, everything from driver sickness, to leaves on the tracks to flood, strike, snow and even once, suicide (I was on the train that the guy jumped off a bridge on to!)

Sometimes there are replacement bus service, but then you just better off take a day off work for that instead of sitting 4hrs on the bus to the same destination for 1 way. Sometimes no bus service at all and I had to call up favours from friends to come pick me up.

The best thing about not going to that job was the lack of commute, saving money was just a part of it, and saving time and sanity was the bigger factor.
 
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bingham67 said:
www.bbc.co.uk

Train strikes could continue into Christmas, as fresh disruption begins

The leader of the Aslef union has not ruled out industrial action over the festive period.
www.bbc.co.uk

Feels like it never ending when will it stop it's ridiculous now.
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I don't think the government want it to stop.

It's a useful "look at how bad the horrible unions and their minions the Labour party are" tool, much the same as they've been doing with the doctors who have had under inflation wage rises for most of the last 13 years.
 
englishpremier said:
Just try taking a bike on a train.

I had to get a bike from Doncaster to Wolverhampton last year. That involved 3-4 different train companies all with different policies on bicycles and only 2 that you could actually book in advance.

Same issue when trying to get a ferry from Portsmouth. You can guarantee your bike on the trains from Birmingham to London, but not during rush hour (even though the trains have specific compartments for bikes), and you can't guarantee at bike on trains from London to Portsmouth at any time, so it's just luck of the draw which may end up with you missing your ferry.

That being said, it's not much better in France. Using local trains (since most TGVs don't allow bikes) I think I needed 7 different ones to get southern Germany.
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I abandoned my plans to take a bike on the train in the UK after being baffled by the complexity and lack of support for cyclists.

I've taken my bike in the train several times in Holland and there's always been a train carriage dedicated to bikes, where you can either put your bike to the side and take a seat or, if there's room, take a seat with your bike next to you.
 
I need to get to Bristol on Wednesday next week, and that’s when ASLEF are striking.

Had to rent a car instead which cost £113 for 2 days (+ fuel and parking), and the train ticket would have been £220-£266.
 
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I now go into work Tuesdays and Thursdays and the trains are inevitably delayed, missing or rammed. It’s rarely a good journey and I laugh when they say wfh is wrecking the economy.

They have severely reduced my service to and from work so there are now only 2 trains a hour and the “peak” one is always 2 carriages so that’s rammed and the one that will get me into work late is 6 carriages and much nicer.

I used to pay £4.50 a day return in 2019, it’s now £7.30 for all this benefit..

I don’t see it improving anytime soon due to government and Network Rail involvement
 
Richie said:
England should renationalise the railways like other parts of the UK have done. Take the greedy private firms out of the equation.

Energy
Water
Transport

These things should all be nationalised IMHO.
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The important parts of the railways are nationalised. Most of the delays happen because we still have a railway which is fundamentally Victorian.

Nationalisation of the train operators is not going to make a material difference to the service.

Every time the government tries embark on national infrastructure projects it’s litigated to hell and back by NIMBYs and all it does is delay projects and significantly add to costs. It’s no wonder why they don’t bother.

Meanwhile China has built thousands of kilometres of high speed rail track in the time it’s taken us to plan a branch line between Oxford and Cambridge, let alone HS2.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
The important parts of the railways are nationalised. Most of the delays happen because we still have a railway which is fundamentally Victorian.

Nationalisation of the train operators is not going to make a material difference to the service.

Every time the government tries embark on national infrastructure projects it’s litigated to hell and back by NIMBYs and all it does is delay projects and significantly add to costs. It’s no wonder why they don’t bother.

Meanwhile China has built thousands of kilometres of high speed rail track in the time it’s taken us to plan a branch line between Oxford and Cambridge, let alone HS2.
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Still doesn't mean it should be private. Subsidies for railways are at the highest ever and so are ticket prices, the profits are leached away and the problems are given to the nationalised parts. Yes its victorian and yes its aging but it could be a lot better than it is.

Shame we had a oxford to cambridge line back in the 1800s, like many now lost.
 
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200sols said:
Still doesn't mean it should be private. Subsidies for railways are at the highest ever and so are ticket prices, the profits are leached away and the problems are given to the nationalised parts. Yes its victorian and yes its aging but it could be a lot better than it is.

Shame we had an oxford to cambridge line back in the 1800s, like many now lost.
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Private vs public point you’re making is ideological and isn’t going to materially change anything. The rail service in Scotland and Wales is no better or any cheaper. For the most part, headline ticket prices are regulated by the government.

It could be better than it is if it had more investment in infrastructure, that isn’t coming from train operating companies.

The main role of the train operating companies is to operate the trains (which they don’t own) and cover customer service.

While there have been personnel issues causing problems (E.g. staff shortages), the strikes are largely for the government to resolve as pay is set by them, the rail companies hands are tied in that regard. The vast majority of issues are down to the creaking infrastructure which is 100% in government control.

One of the main reasons that say Germanys rail network is so much better is because they have an interconnecting network where trains can take multiple routes to get to the same destination. We do not, if you wan to go from London to Edinburgh, there is one track pretty much the whole way.

The German system means they can take entire sections of line out of action for weeks to perform maintenance and upgrades which little to no impact.

In the U.K., upgrades and maintenance are restricted to a few hours overnight because the track is needed every day. Taking it out of action would cause chaos because there is no alternative. Every day it falls further and further behind.

A part of the benefit of HS2 is to create alternative routes off the only track going up the middle of England, so the existing track can be better maintained and upgraded to modern standards.

Before anyone says they should scrap HS2 and build northern powerhouse rail instead, they might want to consider that they are both meant to share the same track outside Manchester, including a £15b section which tunnels into the city. Scrapping the northern leg of HS2 just adds those costs to the proposed Leeds to Manchester route as HS2 is currently paying for it.
 
Travel between Liverpool and Aberdeen where I work, did it by train once when I had to go up there for a course before I started my job up there and swore never again. It was supposed to take 6 & 1/2 hours, but due to delays causing missed connections, it took nearly 10 hours by the time I reached my hotel. I’ve been flying up there instead ever since, as it actually also works out to be cheaper, but seeing how god awful Manchester airport is, and how often Loganair are late, I’m going to try driving up there this time.

I mean factoring in the time it takes me to get from my house in Liverpool to Manchester Airport, then adding to that allowing time to get through security at T3 which can be farcical sometimes, then the actual flight time up to Aberdeen, then getting through the airport, collecting bags and getting to the hotel the other end, I could probably just drive it in the same time, if not perhaps faster.
 
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