Why are our railways so bad?

[totallyfixed]

The problem is that a lot of people compare commuting or work travel in the UK, where a 10 minute delay can be disastrous, to travelling on holiday abroad where a 20 minute delay is neither here nor there.

I've been let down and delayed by trains in Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria, and stuck in horrendous traffic queues around Vienna (twice at least).

I am not exactly a newbie when it comes to using trains on the continent, I lived there for 10 years. No system will ever be perfect, but while you may get let down once in a while, in the UK you can't trust any train to be on time. Cross Country trains are particularly poor with less than 10% of trains on time in the evening, by which time they are filthy.
Not everyone earns mega bucks, if you live in the more rural parts and do not own a car the train is often the only answer, to fork out more than a quarter of your wage [and often more] on travel is ridiculous. This government couldn't care less.

 

[Fubar]

Calling @172traindriver ...

 

[mjr]

Spanish railways.... absolutely fantastic - and cyclist friendly!

...but with one of the most confusing ticket systems I've ever seen without the ticket office staff to make sense of it!

Wheels getting flats because of traction problems, taking units out of service and closing lines for weeks. The operator allegedly has cut back the number of overall units to save costs, leaving inadequate cover. The operator is, er, Dutch.

I thought the number and types of units were dictated by the DfT? But yes, even the wonderful Dutch railways seem incapable of providing a good service on our network.

Not everyone earns mega bucks, if you live in the more rural parts and do not own a car the train is often the only answer, to fork out more than a quarter of your wage [and often more] on travel is ridiculous. This government couldn't care less.

Oh they could and their plan is the biggest road-building programme for forty years, so there's a lot less rural areas and it encourages even more people to use cars more. And screw the cyclists - no-one is currently cycling across those green fields, so that means there's no demand to cycle there and we can build them as motorways with no alternative cycle route! And I wish that was a joke, but it was the reasoning given in the A14 Huntingdon bypass bypass consultation for banning cycles from it and not building any cycle road. And yes, they're bypassing the 1973 bypass. What's the odds this one will solve everything as promised? And will they have a third repeat before learning from history?

 

[Globalti]

Nigerian friends of mine went to Amsterdam for a holiday and said it was like looking inside a superior brain.

 

[Piemaster]

There used to be double decker trains in the South East Region a few decades ago.

Didn't know that. A thought - did their disappearance coincide with a lot of lines being electrified?

 

[chriswoody]

This is the bike carriage on the lower deck of the train I take to work every day. Clean spacious and quiet. It takes about 25 minutes to cover the 45km into Hannover. My fare is also really good value and as long as the bike is folded it's free. On the whole German trains are reliable, though delays of up to 30 minutes can be common. The older regional express trains though can be very scruffy and slow, you can easily lose the will to live travelling on them.

 

[Gravity Aided]

British trains have American trains beat, hands down. American trains are just getting back into shape after passenger trains were dumped on to the government in 1972, and it has taken this long to get them to the passable state they are in now. The American Government subsidized air and road travel at the same time they were using the railroads to death during WWII. Freight railroading is in much better shape, especially due to container shipping and the like. Passenger service has improved in states which have accepted government projects at improvement, not so in states that refused the money due to political agendas. And I can ride on a bicycle trail straight to my passenger station, which is also the bus station (both intercity and local transit), the city hall, a parking deck, and a Subway Sandwich place. (and a hangout for the local railfan community) And I still haven't seen Ronald Reagans' Super Busses.

 

[mybike]

There used to be double decker trains in the South East Region a few decades ago.

I remember them too, travelled on them a few times.

Didn't know that. A thought - did their disappearance coincide with a lot of lines being electrified?

They were on the 3rd rail system so already electrified. Trouble was they were slam door trains and had a limited height. You were virtually sitting on the heads of those below. I was told they were withdrawn because it took too long to get the passengers on/off. Not that it's a problem now with units having less doors.

 

[Glow worm]

This is the bike carriage on the lower deck of the train I take to work every day. Clean spacious and quiet. It takes about 25 minutes to cover the 45km into Hannover. My fare is also really good value and as long as the bike is folded it's free. On the whole German trains are reliable, though delays of up to 30 minutes can be common. The older regional express trains though can be very scruffy and slow, you can easily lose the will to live travelling on them. View attachment 111128

Just wow! It's like we live on another farkin' planet over here. And a completely crap one at that.


Drums fingers on desk awaiting the first person to say 'well bloody well piss off then'!

 

[growingvegetables]

This is the bike carriage on the lower deck of the train I take to work every day. Clean spacious and quiet. It takes about 25 minutes to cover the 45km into Hannover. My fare is also really good value and as long as the bike is folded it's free. On the whole German trains are reliable, though delays of up to 30 minutes can be common. The older regional express trains though can be very scruffy and slow, you can easily lose the will to live travelling on them. View attachment 111128

WHAAAAAAAAT? Speechless. Makes Northern Rail's provision look like Victorian-age cattle-trucks.

 

[Crackle]

@jonesy will tell us, if he can deign to enter cafe.

If not, I can call Adrian a right farking self-gratification artist and get the thread moved to SC&P?

 

[NorthernDave]

I used to commute by train and when they worked they were fine. Read the paper or a book, listen to some tunes, all good.
Eventually after 3.5 years of playing a fun game of "will a train turn up today?" while stood on the platform, followed by "will it get me to work / home?" I lost the will to carry on and bought a car. Shorter journey time (most of the time), can pick Mrs ND up from work so no additional transport costs for her and day to day traveling costs are lower. That was over 15 years ago.
Occasionally I'll still use the train (if I'm going out after work, etc) and the actual trains operated by Northern Rail are still the very same ones I was catching 19 years ago.
I'm going to that there London in a couple of weeks for work and that will be my first journey on the 'new' Virgin East Coast so we shall see how that goes.

And the real irony is that most UK rail services are actually run by the Dutch, Spanish, German, etc national operators with all the profits going back to them to invest in their home rail networks...

 

[TissoT]

The German train I took two weeks ago was over 30 minutes late. I can't remember the last time I had a delay that long in the UK.

Did they give a reason.. Don't tell me leaves on the line !!

 

[robjh]

Think thats the point of the lack of hills in NL, they may have water to cross, but they don't have victorian era tunnels to deal with which means the double decker trains won't appear here.
In the NRM in York heres a massive chinese steam engine thats information plate says it had to be road transported there as it's too big to go through UK tunnels, similarly the width of a bullet train carriage they have must be nearly twice that of our HS trains. Brunel had it right with his wide gauge. It's a downside of this country being the rail pioneers, we'll always be fighting history. The countries that followed could look at what happened here then improve it.

It's not to do with the presence or absence of tunnels, but their size. Countries such as France and Germany run double-decker trains despite tunnels and bridges. It all goes back to decisions in the mid 19th century, when for some reason Britain's railways (all private btw) opted for a lower loading gauge than became standard on most parts of the continent. Even Brunel didn't tackle that - his larger gauge was for track width, not for height. Only one route was built to the continental loading gauge, the Great Central from Sheffield to London, but that was closed in the 1960s.
Double-deck coaches were tried on the Southern Region (I think in the 1950s) but were abandonned as they were far too cramped with our lower height restrictions. Without huge infrastructure spending, there's not much prospect of them coming back.

[edited] ps @Piemaster , on re-reading I see that I'm not actually contradicting any of what you said - take it as adding to your points

 

[Crackle]

Good article here

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel...would-improve-britains-railways-10184527.html