Trains!
- Thread starter Avenged7Fold
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I travelled by train from Manchester to London for £12.50. It took just over 2 hours.
Advance purchase tickets are cheap - just like those cheap flights. Turn up to the airport 90 minutes before the flight and ask for a ticket on the next plane and you'll pay rather more than you did..
Associate
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Maybe if jobs were spread out more across the country the rail network would not be under so much pressure. Seems all the best jobs are in London, Birmingham and Manchester so each day everybody has to gravitate towards those centres.
Employers should be encouraged by the Goverment to enable their staff to work from home. I could easily do my job from home but nope I have travel 40 miles by car, train, spend £1700 per year, pollute the environment and make myself more tired/unhealthy just to plonk my backside at a different PC in Birmingham. It’s dumb.
Employers should be encouraged by the Goverment to enable their staff to work from home. I could easily do my job from home but nope I have travel 40 miles by car, train, spend £1700 per year, pollute the environment and make myself more tired/unhealthy just to plonk my backside at a different PC in Birmingham. It’s dumb.
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A lot of that is down to the mess of the private-public system we have. If they were integrated half of those issues would disappear. The issue is that the Tory party are ideologically against trains it seems. What have they done for trains except HS2 which they won't even be around to see completed?
The mere fact that they have a timetable that is scheduled to seconds shows you how good theirs are.
Frankly i even class a train running 5 mins late (arrival or departure) as one that is actually running on time. I'm sure if that was Japan, everyone on the train would be getting full refunds.
Caporegime
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People can quote internet stereotypes all they want, I am in Japan now seeing it with my own eyes and not seen anything close to it.
So believe the internet or come see it for yourself...oh wait, I am seeing it for myself.
As for the groping, there are women only carts.
Meh it’s not like the West has clean hands, the President of the USA grape their you know what and there’s an entire thread of sexual harassment of all kinds of high profile people!
So believe the internet or come see it for yourself...oh wait, I am seeing it for myself.
As for the groping, there are women only carts.
Meh it’s not like the West has clean hands, the President of the USA grape their you know what and there’s an entire thread of sexual harassment of all kinds of high profile people!
and another poster on the previous page was in Japan and felt the trains were overcrowded relative to his regular train back in England - this is the issue with individual anecdotes, they're not necessarily the full picture, your experience and the experience of the poster below clearly differ
perhaps different parts of the country, traveling at different times etc.. - perhaps you're on your holiday (?) and he was over there for work and therefore commuting each day at rush hour
Have you seen the signs in the train stations saying not to take upskirt photos yet?
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Is there even any economic case for keeping the trains privatised? Nationalisation would cost nothing.
Caporegime
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Well you can say that about every part of England if you apply “different part of the country” you can’t then show 1 clip and think it’s like that all over Japan all the time.
Even if it does happen, it doesn’t mean it’s everywhere. There are LOTS of rural areas of japan and I’ve been on trains in Birmingham worse than rush hour trains in Osaka, Fukuoka, Hiroshima and Kyoto. Does it make any difference whether I’m on holiday or work if I’m on the train at 8am and 5pm?
nope if you're commuting back and forth at rush hour every day on your holiday then of course not, a bit bizarre though - and indeed the same can apply to England if you like, I never said individual anecdotes are only flawed in Japan
Soldato
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Do you actually remember the days of BR? People like to complain because its our national pastime, but compared with the days of BR its night and day.
Caporegime
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Why not? Do I travel in a different space continuum than the locals? When I get on a 8am train on a Wednesday the Japanese knows Raymond is around and they decide not go to work instead to give me to illusion of no commuters?
You want proof, come see it for yourself, don't take anyone else's word for it. I am here, not seeing what you are suggesting, not even close. Sure there are people and lots of people but I've seen worse in Hong Kong tbh.
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Associate
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Rush hour Japanese trains are a nightmare. I had to laugh when I was on a trip back to the UK and people were complaining that they were packed like sardines. They had no idea! Japanese commuters have it worse than sardines, lol.
Commuter travel is very cheap in Japan, but for long distance intercity, the UK is cheaper because you can book in advance. Generally there's no discount for booking in advance in Japan unless its part of a tour. It's often cheaper to fly than take the train.
I'd still take Japanese trains though any day of the week though. A thousand times more reliable and convenient.
Commuter travel is very cheap in Japan, but for long distance intercity, the UK is cheaper because you can book in advance. Generally there's no discount for booking in advance in Japan unless its part of a tour. It's often cheaper to fly than take the train.
I'd still take Japanese trains though any day of the week though. A thousand times more reliable and convenient.
I am actually too young/wasn't in the country
but have heard the horror stories from family and mainly here lol.
Fine, if slow, just absurdly expensive for tickets on the day. I've only started using local trains here recently for my commute, occasionally 2 minutes or so late, but it's £1 for a 40 minute journey. High speed trains here, never seen even a minute delay on the dozens of times I've used them.
I've used rail networks in many other countries, but none extensively enough to pass judgement on. Well except China, but that was a decade ago, and they seem to have come on quite a way since then.
Man of Honour
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What definitions of late do you take issue with? I might well agree but I'm not sure quite what you're referring to - is it the 30 minutes before it's classed as delayed for compensation purposes (15 minutes on Southern services now) or that most railway stations won't acknowledge a train to be late if it's within about 5 minutes of it's scheduled time or something else entirely?
Being fair to London you can use your Oyster card for trains, buses, trams, underground etc as well. You might or might not consider it cheap however.
It might be that those videos are slightly dated as pushers are either less frequent now in Japan or have stopped entirely. If Wikipedia is right then it reached a nadir by around 2000 and has subsequently improved due to greater capacity and/or incentives for travelling at off peak times.
The groping problem is clearly unacceptable and it is no defence to say that other countries also have similar issues, both are in the wrong.
The costs would rather depend on how you do it wouldn't they? Most of the rail franchises are on long(ish) term contracts so there are three main options I would think 1) either the franchisee will need compensated for the government breaking the contract early and taking it off them 2) the government could take it off them by declaring all rail nationalised and not pay compensation but that would cause at least as many problems as it solved elsewhere or 3) the government could wait for the contracts to end naturally but in some cases that may take the better part of a decade depending on how far through the contract they are.
Soldato
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Regularly seem to be getting cancelations due to lack of crew at the moment, also my train is running at least 3 minutes late everyday (sometimes significantly more) which never used to happen. A minor inconvenience but still a bit tedious, guess it's overcrowding on the lines into Kings Cross.
On the other hand they have upgraded the rolling stock, though the new trains seem to have fewer seats and more standing room, which is no doubt justified by making the new seats incredibly uncomfortable.
"I can't sit down!" "You lucky git!"
On the other hand they have upgraded the rolling stock, though the new trains seem to have fewer seats and more standing room, which is no doubt justified by making the new seats incredibly uncomfortable.
"I can't sit down!" "You lucky git!"
True, but I don't think you can just rock up and purchase a normal ticket that does the same thing? When London does that it will be more beneficial. At the moment you need to purchase an oyster card, which obviously not everyone wants to do, particularly someone like myself who only goes there once in a blue moon
Why not, out of interest? Last I checked it was a £5 refundable deposit to get one. Hell, I still have one in my wallet, and I've been to London twice in the past 5 years.