They’re not perfect but I am rarely delayed by more than a minute or two. Agree that a massive issue is the price, my train is close to £30 a day for a 50 minute ride into the city and it goes up by 3-5% every year.
The only proper delays I see are caused by unusual weather, as it’s the UK - flooding or snow.
Earlier this year I had to take public transport for a few weeks whilst getting my power steering repaired and on one occasion my first train was delayed for reasons that were never explained. When I got to my interchange the next train was delayed due to signal failure. And when I finally got my train the driver announced that due to the delay they were passing straight through two stations, one of which was mine, so I had to get off earlier and wait for yet another train.
In the end it took me about 3hrs to complete a journey I can do in 30 mins by car.
Northern Rail, Transpennine, West Coast, ScotRail, East Coast (there already) etc that have or are about to be given to "operator of last resort", i.e. renationalised -- under a Tory government --for having failed badly.
It has follow on effects far down some lines as well, as problems at London Bridge would often cause delays far south of Croydon and up again towards Victoria (because Croydon becomes a chokepoint) for example.
But as elsewhere in the UK, expensive .
Your comment made me very happy, I laughed and snorted, and I'm glad I wasn't drinking my coffee at the time I read it. Thank you for writing it, you are awesome.
Now I'm thinking of a Cult of Cthulhu who design railway depots as an homage to their unknowably evil master, with junctions and lines as a representation of its tentacles and body.
Over the summer there were at least 4 occasions where the whole line was suspended. They did get unlucky with some power failures if I remember. But twice the line was suspended through London due to heat effecting overhead wires.
Once could be just about forgiven (it gets hot in summer who knew that), but to have it happen again a few weeks later cannot. Sort the issue that suspends your whole network after the first occurrence! If it can't be fixed with a reasonable amount of time to schedule emergency works the system is not fit for purpose.
Well, the thing is: we weren't able to change the laws of physics in those few weeks. Metal still expands, so the wires still droop in the heat. The system is designed for normal conditions; sometimes it doesn't work in abnormal conditions. They could probably do better, but it takes time, effort, and money which are all in limited supply.