Fed up with train disruptions
- Thread starter pc-guy
- Start date
Soldato
When the service loses enough passengers that it's no longer viable to run at all.
I honestly don't know why anyone would take the train to work any more (outside of perhaps London). There's only so many times your employer will let you off for being late, or taxis you can afford (whilst still having to pay for your season ticket) when the train invariably fails to turn up.
Delay repay is a joke for regular travellers as well - the daily limit of 1/20th your monthly season ticket cost barely covers a bus ticket, never mind needing to get a taxi because the train is cancelled at short notice and the bus takes too long.
At the very least it stops several hundred million being paid out to private entities each year which could be reinvested in the railways or be used for other government spending.
Soldato
What have all the rail works been about then? There's rail works often on a Sunday and bank holiday, but also during other times, since I was about 10. What have been working on for 30 years. Would have thought most of the track and singling on intercity routes has been replaced now.
Do you now loathe yourself? I never get the hate for cyclists. I mean grandmas and kids cycle, why would you hate them? I'm guessing what you actually mean is you hate chavs on bicycles, and 'sports cyclists'
Last edited:
Soldato
I was over the moon when I no longer had to endure the Paddington to Reading train commute as it always broke near Slough and then you were left with attractive options such as getting to Basingstoke and taking the South Worst service into Clapham Junction or airport bus to Heathrow and then tube into London.
Paddington to Hayes & Harlington proved much more reliable over the 10 years I endured that, especially once they’d debugged the electric trains.
Paddington to Hayes & Harlington proved much more reliable over the 10 years I endured that, especially once they’d debugged the electric trains.
The track? Yes. But its still in the same places the Victorians laid it.
Have you considered they need to to that to just maintain the status quo?
Replacing an existing piece of worn out Victorian track doesn’t make it any less a Victorian system. They just replace it like for like so they can run services again the next day.
It's funny how all the rail and tube strikes vanish into thin air when there's a Labour government despite hardly anything changing.
Something I took note of in the 2000's
Soldato
The important parts? - The infrastructure may be important but to dismiss the companies operating the trains as less important is just daft. They are as equally important. You cant have a functioning railway system without either the infrastructre or the trains that actually run on it.... I fail to see your point here.
Better is subjective... I don't see Scotland or Wales having strike action over and above ASLEF stopping trains due to not being able tp operate without signalers etc.... This is a Westminster issue and cannot be resolved by the devolved administrations. So these 2 countries have worked hard and negotiated to resolve the strikes successfully and are then hamstrung by the UK government...
Last edited:
Trains are utterly useless in the UK. Might as well look to mass transit non electric car/bus solutions at this rate.
We drove to Stansted from Cardiff and paid for parking and it was cheaper and less hassle than the train.
Other option is national express (which is much cheaper than both).
Train wasn't even a consideration for me.
Land is so expensive here due to our huge population new tracks are extremely expensive.
We drove to Stansted from Cardiff and paid for parking and it was cheaper and less hassle than the train.
Other option is national express (which is much cheaper than both).
Train wasn't even a consideration for me.
Land is so expensive here due to our huge population new tracks are extremely expensive.
Soldato
It's ridiculous isn't it?
When we last flew out of Heathrow, even ignoring the convenience factor, it was significantly cheaper to drive down the night before, book a decent hotel for the night, plus parking for the week, and transfers to/from the hotel, than it would have been to take the train down in the morning.
Last edited:
Commissario
One of the big problems for the rail network as has been said we're still largely using tracks along lines the Victorians laid down...We've still got stations that don't have disabled access to the actual platforms without staff assistance (my local station finally got a new "footbridge" about 5-10 years ago, something like 15 years after it had a "major refurbishment", and finally with that footbridge they removed the need for a porter to shut down the track and push wheelchairs across the tracks).
The other one is that because we don't actually have a "rail network" but rather a bunch of largely separate lines with a handful of interconnects so any time they do work on 100 yards of track it slows down an entire 50+ mile section as they have almost zero capacity to route around works.
The result is they have the choice of either doing about 3 hours of actual "improvements" a night having to get the track up and running again for the first train in the morning, run the trains at very slow speeds past workers who have to drop tools every few minutes on a nearby track, or close the line entirely for a section cutting the track effectively into two parts with busses bridging the gap.
We desperately need half a dozen HS2 type projects just to give the capacity to actually improve existing lines without having to shut them them down for months.
I would also ask how much work you expect them to actually get done on a bank holiday, that's only maybe 2-3 days, and is barely enough to keep up maintenance on some sections, and it's not something you do once, the tracks need reasonably regular replacements as do the signals, power cables etc (from memory a lot of those works are planned pretty much to the minute to try and make sure they can get the trains running again, and even then they can fail).
Again it's something that if we had a proper rail network it could be done faster and cheaper with far less disruption as you'd actually be able to do a lot of the works in a fraction of the time they currently take, and without much of the duplicated effort where they might move the equipment into place to do work at midnight, lift tracks, get the bed ready for the new tracks, then drop a few sections of track before they have to make sure everything is ready for the 5am train.
IIRC it took years for them do do the "platform" works at Clapham Junction, including something like 2 years between getting the lift shells in place and actually getting them fitted out and working because they couldn't shut it down for more than a few hours every now and then.
I have to use the train from time to time, and whilst I much prefer sitting on a train to driving, I can't remember the last time I actually managed to sit on the train for more than a short part of any journey as they're always massively overcrowded even outside of "peak" time (they're bad enough "off peak" that I hate to think what they'd be like "peak").
Last edited:
I am worried about up coming Wednesday as no train and no tube, I work in a pharmacy and not turning up to work mean potentially not opening up pharmacy if no stand in pharmacist available. May have to sofa surf for a night on Tuesday.
Usually I have no complaint using Southeastern, there are delays but not very common.
Usually I have no complaint using Southeastern, there are delays but not very common.
Soldato
So the track is fine, and old/worn parts are replaced when need, it's not like we're going to suddenly change the gauge. You're saying it's the countryside it's laid through that the problem? What's the issue there, it's not like the tracks are full of tight bends or all crossing areas like Chat Moss.
Last edited:
Commissario
The tracks aren't as straight as a lot of newer ones, they're not as level (although IIRC that's been being improved), more importantly in most places we only have one track in each direction, that's zero redundancy for any work to be done without either shutting the entire line down in both directions (lets you get the work done a lot faster), or having to play "pass the token" with trains proceeding slowly past the work area then handing over to trains coming from the other direction.
IIRC train tracks typically last a few decades, but with our network that means that we're pretty much running on the edge of falling behind on keeping up with even just replacement as the level of disruption of doing that work means we tend to limit when we do it. If we could actually shut a line down the cost of doing any work on it would drop massively as it could be done faster, and with more of it done in "normal" hours so you're not paying multiples of the "day" time wage.
There are also a number of sections of track that IIRC have had to be repeatedly redone and need/needed work to make the ground they pass over safer for modern trains and a modern route would have avoided it.
To add to the above that when they do works during the day like on a bank holiday weekend, the trains they do run have to be further spaced apart.
The track is broken down into sections between signals and you can’t have more than once train in the same section of track. All trains up and down the line have to run slower because of the stopping distances and the distances between signals.
For example the stopping distance of a fully loaded freight train is measured in miles not meters.
In Germany they’d just take the whole section out of action and go around it, there is nowhere to go around in the U.K.
The track is broken down into sections between signals and you can’t have more than once train in the same section of track. All trains up and down the line have to run slower because of the stopping distances and the distances between signals.
For example the stopping distance of a fully loaded freight train is measured in miles not meters.
In Germany they’d just take the whole section out of action and go around it, there is nowhere to go around in the U.K.
I'm saying there's no redundancy in the system, the west coast mainline is the busiest mix use railway in Europe and its not all that straight either, curves everywhere, tunnel limitations ad well in some areas. HS2 was designed to free up capacity on this line and others.
Last edited:
Soldato
my commute is ridiculously expensive, and whilst it is fine when it works (having two train operators and ~6 trains an hour to choose from at peak times is nice) but the striking is definitely not winning me over to their side. It costs me over £60 to get to work and back (£10 parking £51 day return) on Thameslink/EMR, for a 40 minute train, and it just isn't as reliable as it needs to be.
This Wednesday I have no choice but to be in London as I've got to attend a conference with my team that is already paid for, so will have to drive to work for the first time since moving out to Bedfordshire - on a train and tube strike day I reckon traffic is going to be absolutely mad
This Wednesday I have no choice but to be in London as I've got to attend a conference with my team that is already paid for, so will have to drive to work for the first time since moving out to Bedfordshire - on a train and tube strike day I reckon traffic is going to be absolutely mad