Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective
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In Spain, by contrast, you simply cannot get a train ticket for the long distance network if you're at a commuter station, nor can you get a ticket to cover a route between two arbitrary stations if the route would combine long- and short-distance trains. You need to buy long distance and regional tickets separately, and cannot buy tickets for commuter services from outside the specific region. And they are all run by the same state-owned operator Renfe!
Meanwhile, in the UK, you can go to Stalybridge on the outskirts of Manchester and ask the ticket office for a return ticket from Edinburgh Haymarket to Bury St Edmunds and they won't bat an eyelid even though it covers God knows how many potential operators.
Note this is not in any way an example of the UK system being superior due to privatisation. The reason it works this well is because it already worked like that under British Rail.
Mostly true, but not universally so - try Denton -> Manchester Piccadilly ;)
</pedantry>
Although going outside Northern Trains' area does indeed seem to prevent fares being calculated: http://traintimes.org.uk/denton/deal/08:45/2022-10-22
(Denton is mildly famous amongst British rail enthusiasts as it has a 'parliamentary'[1] service of one train a week each way. Useless for actual travel, but (partly because of an unusually pleasant station buffet with good beer at Stalybridge) the regular site of meetups for rail geeks).
You can even get a ticket to Ryde, Isle of Wight and get the Ferry ticket included too.
I'm fairly sure you can buy this from any station in Britain, at least if it has a ticket office or machines.
You can commute Segovia - Madrid Chamartin on a high speed train (95 km, 27 min, 200 euro per month). Reliability and price are top notch.
A comparable commute is Cambridge - London (60 mi, 65 min, 500-600 pound per month depending on some details).
I have used both, and there is no contest, sadly.
For example Peterborough which is quite some miles north of Cambridge runs trains to London in 51 mins.
What about Milton Keynes > London in 34 mins, Reading > London in 30 mins and so on.
Why is this?
I know the story about the University insisting that the station be far from the center of town to make it inconvenient for students, and that Peterborough is on the ECML, but I don't see good reasons for Cambridge being hard to get to. There are direct express trains! It's not the North where everyone's trundling around in Pacers.
I think the reasons are mix of the two above you mention. No ecml which for what can only be described as a decent economic hub is a missed opportunity. Train station a bit of a pain to get to which extends real life journey times, although they are clearly trying to improve that and Cambridge North isn't bad.
it's also 46 minutes[1], which is essentially the same as the peterborough expresses[2]
[1] https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:W78063/2022-0...
[2] https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:L77638/2022-0...
Says who?
Do you feel it's not?
But since 2020, short distance commute via train has had an upgrade with new 8 carriage trains along the Fen Line, making situations where you don't have a seat less likely.
Youve also missed over the fact that the Cambridge train is more like 45 minutes than 60.
This goes both ways. When I search for Madrid to Segovia routes, I get trains that vary from 30m to 2 hours.
The issue’s it’s a bit too transparent: and after a while you realise that your suica is emptying unexpectedly fast, because you’re paying (and resetting your trip counter) every time you pass a gate, and that you probably shouldn’t blindly follow western trip system because you want to limit network switches, at which point you run into the issue that the resources for that are mostly in Japanese.
Then it depends how much the overhead is and how much you care.
It only works on JR lines, so in Tokyo you still need to buy tickets for all the private train lines and metro lines (city run and private run). Try getting around Tokyo on the daily using only JR lines; it won't be too much fun for you.
JR pass is only really useful for long-haul, intercity type journeys, primarily by shinkansen
Person above was talking about the JR Pass, which as you know is pretty useless for general "getting around Tokyo" purposes
(For a while in the early 2000s the best way to buy UK train tickets was through the Deutsche Bahn website; exogenous ticketing is weird, but presumably they've already done the API work to simplify it for you)
I've given it a go, but on my phone TheTrainLine is returning "unavailable" on literally any journey for some reason (my radical ad-and-tracker blocking?).
I was trying to search for tickets from Cervera—served by regional trains from Barcelona and Lleida—to Torrijos—served by regional trains from Madrid. If TheTrainLine works for you maybe you can try Cervera-Torrijos.
Best case, I'm guessing it might be able to suggest a reasonable combination (regional to Lleida -> high speed to Madrid -> regional to Torrijos) but I'd be very surprised if it can directly sell you any ticket except the Lleida-Madrid one, let alone the whole route as a single ticket.
EDIT: I finally got TheTrainLine working, and it suggested me an odd bus journey from Cervera rather than the train. So, I decided to check, and in fact TheTrainLine is fully unaware of commuter and regional services around Barcelona or Madrid, and erroneously states "No tickets available" even when searching for routes which I take often. This is almost as bad as Renfe's own website, but at least TheTrainLine includes (some) 3rd party bus services.They're about to. National train operators were mandated to find a solution to homogenize booking but it's getting nowhere.
edit: grammar
I'm not saying it's a good system - it's a very bad one, having it split between so many companies is a mistake. But the London metro is not a good analogy since it is all one company.
1. For railway travel, you need to top up a minimum balance of 20 € (okay, technically 16 €, because with an anonymous card you're allowed 4 € of credit), which is already a bit on the high side if you're only need to go a few stations by train and are only travelling occasionally.
2. Changing trains has become a bit more complicated, because if the change of trains also coincides with a change of the train operator you now always have to check out and back in again (and the check out/in procedure also potentially makes things more expensive than a true through ticket).
3. Certain offers (including e.g. reduced fares for children!) are only available with a personal chipkaart – for a long time those were impossible to obtain without a Dutch address of residence and/or bank account. These days they're also sold to residents of Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany, but you still have to order them in advance, and everybody else is still left out (e.g. somebody from Lille is actually closer to the Dutch border than somebody living in Munich, but only the latter is allowed to buy a personal chipkaart).
The Dutch railway system is more like a giant metro/light rail. Trains between the major cities have a high frequency of every 10 minutes.
I find people have a very different experience with UK rail on whether they're travelling for business or pleasure.
People who commute have to take trains at peak time, at the absolute highest ticket prices, take hundreds of trains a year giving lots of opportunities to get delayed, might get yelled at for being late, and at the end of their journey is... work.
On the other hand, my train travel is off-peak, not that frequent, and almost always taking me to a loved one, a party or a concert. Understandably, my feelings towards trains are very different to my commuter peers!
After living in Germany... British railways seem like an enterprise level SLA.
Tickets with a short expiration time (2 hours... why?), hour(s) long delays, sudden last minute platform changes (you need to use the underground passage full of people), trains just disappearing off the screen with no notice after being delayed several times (I mean, come on!), incredibly rude controllers who just seem like they really want to throw you in prison for not having a ticket (oh yeah, that's a thing, take that Brits!), shoddy rail and frequent stops in the middle of nowhere (or 100 meters from your station), trains that make the Pacers seem like Cadillacs (OK that was one time, not sure where they pulled that pos from)...
I kinda see why Germans hate Deutsche Bahn :D
It got better as personnel seems to be more friendly than 10-15 years ago.
Train! You were lucky to have a train! We used to run on the rail, all twenty-six of us, no sitting spots, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
When British people go to Switzerland or Japan its like they've died and woken up in heaven.
Japanese rail in particular is pure heaven compared to the UK. Trains are always punctual. Trains are always clean. Trains are always frequent.
And that's before we start talking about the amazing food stores that are attached to main Japanese stations. In the UK you get a filthy station full of greasy horrible fast-food stores.
Also, the trains are on time, so there's no waiting on an overflowing platform for 10 mins of no trains then 30 minutes of trains too full to get onto.
Having experienced both, I'd take Tokyo anytime.
I've done that.
Its busy for sure. But it works. Even if crowded, its still punctual and high-frequency.
Still preferable to a London rush-hour.
In London even during the rush hour you get a seat when you are disabled or pregnant.
In Tokyo you end up pregnant when you enter the train:
https://noisebreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/oshiya.jpg
Also, the pandemic has really sped up adoption of either wfh, partial wfh, or commuting during “shoulder” hours instead of the peak of peak, from what I’ve heard.
It’s nearly as enjoyable as getting someone out of the way so you can get in said aisles yourself and avoid being compressed next to the doors at rushed hours.
Rush hour Tokyo trains were a dream, people are polite and queue, but they queue so that they're not in the way, the carriages are surprisingly head-roomy for 6'4 me, unlike the shit show of the central line, they're cooled properly, like the circle/district and the stations were almost universally clean and spacious unlike our tube platforms which are often cramped with tiny exits through archways blocked by people filling the platforms.
I'm not saying the London Tube is bad, but I would take Tokyo subway over it any day.
It may be controversial to say but tourists (local or from afar) are generally the worst part about central London commuting, due to the ignorance of the etiquette, especially when tourist numbers can be overwhelming in some parts.
Surely this is subjective? The station designs by Leslie Green and Charles Holden in particular are highly regarded.
- Have your ticket/oyster/card ready BEFORE getting to the gates (and move to the side and out of the way if you need to take time to find it)
- Move inside the carriages
- Don't start conversations with commuters (especially during morning rush hour)
- Take your rucksack off and put it by your feet if it's crowded
- Don't walk 3+ abreast
- Don't run for the train and especially don't block the closing door (there's a train every 2-3 minutes, just wait)
Other annoyances;
When you get to the bottom of the escalators don't just stop in the middle looking at phones and wondering what platform you need. Stand to the side.
Observe the queues next to each door position on the platform and join them. Do not just stand in the clear space in the middle. Following on from that, let people off the train first!!
Walk down the platform don't huddle at the entrance to it.
Don't wait for the gates to close before tapping your card. Just tap and check for green light.
This surprised me when visiting the UK.
I actually expected people to stand on the "left" of the scalators - just like how they drive on the left and overtake on the right - but they didn't. They stood on the right.
I was left puzzled ???
Cars stop on the left, which allow other cars to overtake them on the right.
DO ask people for directions or for help, people may look tired, they may look grumpy they may even be those things, but most will be more than willing to help you.
EDIT: Others covered a few important ones I missed too; backpacks off, walking N-abreast so as to be blocking others from passing are a big no-no; you may be having a leisurely stroll, commuters have places to be, whether at work or at home with their families and their feet up after a long day.
edit: Rule to add - don't just stand still when you step off an escalator.
Of course, these are all rules that should be followed by everyone on all public transport. Nothing really specific to the tube.
This goes for any city that is popular with tourists, who seem to forget that most of the people in a city live and work there, and have their own lives that do not revolve around hospitality or entertainment for tourists.
The problem isn't taking lots of trains. The problem is N. About 20-50% of the trains I take are delayed, and another 20% are overcrowded due to... previously delayed or cancelled trains. If N is <10 that just menas I'm unlucky. If n > 200, that means I'm paying >£5000 a year for trains that don't work.
Which is obviously far from perfect - but good enough that a holidaymaker visiting the UK has a good chance of not encountering any severely delayed trains.
[1] https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/popular-statistics/how-many-tr...
Off peak tickets are hardly cheap either
Even a first class ticket is not a guarantee of a seat on a weekday morning…
To some extent, I agree that trains get a lot of criticism, and only some of it is deserved. But some of that criticism is very deserved...
you'd have to be on minimum wage and a reasonable distance out (in which case you might as well just work locally)
10% however I can believe
My old commute into London was £3,660 per year - standard class. Pretty close to 20% of my net at the time. Plenty of people do it because big cities are where the opportunities are.
the commuter fares are regulated, none of the others are
quite why you'd subject yourself to that pain if you're on barely more than minimum wage I really don't know
That's 20% of your after tax income if you're on more than double the median UK salary
peterborough is on the border of super-commuter category
A friend commuted from Coventry to London for a year. She moved there with her husband, but had one more year to go on her PhD -- using the labs at the university was essential, but there was also plenty of work that could be done on the train.
Sure, you can pay a mere £4k per annum for your rail ticket coming in from somewhere like Stevenage, but then you have to find a mortgage lender that will let you borrow another £100k (and won't have a more exciting locality or fancier house to show for it)
Now undoubtedly £7,388 a year is a significant chunk of cash. But to be clear, Peterborough is very much on the edge of the commuter belt at 60 miles from London. A more typical 'commuter belt' origin on that route would be somewhere like Stevenage, Welwyn or Hatfield - which come in at £4,224/year, £3,300/year and £3,076/year respectively.
Sounds like the commuter rail is pricing itself just below the cost of a car.
- UK: Luton to London St. Pancras (35 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £387
- UK: Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly (32 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £292
- Germany: Dusseldorf to Cologne (28 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £85
- France: Mantes-la-Jolie to Paris (34 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61
- Italy: Anzione to Rome (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61
- Spain: Aranjuez to Madrid (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £75
Source is the TUC (2017): https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/uk-commuters-spend-6-times-much-...
> UK workers on average salaries will spend 14% of their income on a monthly season ticket from Luton to London (£387), or 11% from Liverpool to Manchester (£292).
> By contrast, similar commutes would cost passengers only 2% of their incomes in France, 3% in Germany and Italy, and 4% in Spain.
Here are the 2022 prices for the UK. The Liverpool to Manchester route price has dropped:
- UK: Luton to London St. Pancras (35 miles) | Monthly ticket cost: £387 (2017) | £452.80 (2022)
- UK: Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly (32 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £292 (2017) | £234.70 (2022)
Switzerland: £327 a month with an annual commitment, unlimited use of the swiss rail network, local buses/metros/trams/boats etc, with the exception of mountain tourism railways.
these figures are deliberately misleading (well... it is the TUC)
they're using the average UK salary
not the average London or Manchester salary, which are both quite considerably higher (London is almost 100% more)
I don't think anyone commutes from the Home Counties to a job at Pret. People on lower income still live in London, just in not as great housing. People on the train are people who can afford the choice of a luxury of a home in a village or the countryside instead of London.
And spend 3 hours a day on a hellish commute 5 days a week?
Thats not luxury, that's torture.
I do know folls on lower end salaries that commute far, its not rare.
Quick maths:
8*3 = £24 per week
24*4 = £96 per month
96*12 = £1152 per year
Which is about 4% of my annual income.
If I would take the train everyday, it would be about 6%. On top of that I also make up about 2.5 miles by foot every single day, to save on bus fares or even worse, cabs.
A comparison of a car driver would be useful.
It's now £80 but that's unlimited train travel around Birmingham and surrounding areas (to Wolverhampton or Coventry)
That was costing me like £3 a day for my travels for one train to Birmingham and back.
It can be quite affordable.
Plenty of young people live in London on that sort of income but it’s obviously more difficult to make it work if you want to live alone or with more space for eg a family and I guess this is a big reason for people wanting to live outside the city. Though Cambridge is a slightly weird option there: the town is expensive and so are the tickets.
That's easily affordable by booking well in advance, I sometimes even did this as a student if it was £5 more or so on a £50 ticket.
Yeah it can be affordable, but it doesn't give a representative view of train travel...
Travelling to-and-fro Stansted by train was awful compared to taking the National Express up to the airport. The CrossCountry trains were small and crammed to the brim, I had even less leg space in the train than I did with my budget airline flight. Even sitting up completely straight, I still felt my knees rub up against the metal of the seat in front of me. The train stations and trains themselves were filthy with trash lying around. One thing that always bothers me while travelling in the UK, is how there's essentially no cell service along the whole route. You're lucky if you even get to pull up HN reliably.
I suppose it helps travelling first class - but that is not at all realistic for most people living in the UK.
Funny how you say that, HN seems to be one of those sites that works well even on a really terrible WiFi (i.e. UK train WiFi - LNER/Avanti, looking at you)/data connection - mainly due to how basic it is. Shame it's only a link aggregator so the actual 'content' (other than comments) is hit/miss.
And because the onboard Wi-Fi is primarily 4G/5G driven, it’s equally unreliable. I recently flew from Manchester to Toronto and the in-flight Wi-Fi was rock solid almost the entire way. Meanwhile a few weeks ago I took the train from Manchester to Euston for work and the Wi-Fi wasn’t reliable enough to get anything done.
> The CrossCountry trains were small and crammed to the brim
If it was a Voyager/Super Voyager those things are my second least favourite trains on the network*. They were built with a tilting mechanism like the Pendolinos, requiring they be vertically tapered. This makes them feel oppressive and cramped, and stops you standing up without hitting your head. The worst part is, the tilt was disabled to improve reliability, so it’s all for nought.
*My first least favourite train is the Pacer. Cursed 80s bus on rails.
CrossCountry are run by Deutsche Bahn.
I was very impressed by this bowler hatted Thompson&Thomson character's high standards. Of course, eventually I moved to the UK to live in London, and found that he must have been disappointed very often indeed.
Yes, strategically we basically stopped investing Rail Infrastructure in the late Victorian era. So yes, everythin is very picturesque.
>In my experience, looking up schedules, booking tickets, reserving seats and travelling by train was all as straightforward as can be.
You clearly haven't ever bought a ticket. £30 please, unless you want to travel after 10am, then it'll be 25, oh wait you want to go via Reading that'll be 40. Haha, you got through the barrier tapping your oyster card? That doesn't work out here!
>Avanti West Coast and LNER are the pick of the bunch in this regard as both offer quality hot meals and free-flowing drinks in first class, including beer, wine and strong alcohol.
Yes, when you buy a train ticket the cost of a 3 bed semi, they've got some margin. The idea of traveling first class is unheard off for brits.
>4. The UK has two great sleeper trains
The UK, a country where you could name about 30 destinations that would deserve decent sleeper routes, has two. This sums up the Caledonian sleeper:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/22/passenger-sp...
>5. Train travel in the UK can be expensive, but..
I live in a commuter town to London, I spend more on a single ticket to work than a months unlimited travel on German railways.
>7. Platforms are announced late
Specifically, they're announced far later than they need to be. If you see the 9:15 train to Maidenhead hasn't announced the platform yet, go have a look at the arrivals. Becuase there's almost certianly an arrival at 9:03 from Maidenhead on platform 4. Guess what.
>9. Railway employees are amazing
Yeah, brits actually know this. It's only politicians and millionaire corporate execs that don't.
I mean, that's a weird statement to make. Every time I travel the 1st class is packed, and it's not packed with blog-writing foreign visitors. Also the 1st class upgrade can be very cheap - I've been down to London several times where the upgrade was £40 on the day of the departure. Also Newcastle-Edinburgh on the Azuma LNER train in 1st class can be had for as little as £40-50 total, did this several times too. Hardly an extravagant expense.
Bizarre and falsifiable claim. Who do you think is in there? All foreigners? I travel first class quite often if I'm booking in advance, or if I'm travelling on the weekend - and I'm not any kind of money bags foreigner. More space to work, or if you are bringing your family.
If you peeps could keep up Victorian era stations in decent shape imagine how much money was spent there.
That statement surprised me as well. Isn't "Off Peak" lingo confusing for foreign visitors? I know I used to find it annoying to have to care about that, and how there are different kinds of "Anytime" tickets that do or do not cover multiple rail networks.
ahh, I've really wanted to like it, but I've found it exceptionally uncomfortable each time I've used it, and also very expensive. I much prefer the sleeper trains in Thailand
> Train travel in the UK can be highly scenic
The UK really is very pretty. It's easy to forget when in countries with blockbuster scenery, but British countryside really is a joy to look at.
EDIT: one day I'd like this to be an overnight Zeppelin route, but it's never going to happen
I only used it twice, and it was fine. Only fine -- it's a train, not a 5 star hotel. But the bed was comfy enough, I slept OK, and the scenery in the morning was really nice.
- buy tickets (with easy explanations of when/where they're valid)
- see which platform a train will depart from/arrive at
- check delays
- see walking times between platforms
- bus connections info
- handles refunds
- etc.
It works across Europe (elsewhere, I'm not sure), but in my experience it's got the most functionality within the UK.
The app itself is fantastic too. I'm not exaggerating when I say it is one of my favourite pieces of software - it does 1 thing, and does it super well. It's fast: no fluff, no ads. Few apps on my phone are like that anymore.
Trainline adds a fee to every ticket sold, apps like TrainPal do the same things as Trainline (book tickets, check delays, see platform, walking times, etc), but only charge a fee if they get you the ticket cheaper than buying it from the station. So, including the fee, the price you pay is still less. And it find way better split-ticket deals than Trainline does.
most of them use exactly the same booking engine, just without the fee
you even see trainline.com in the address bar
That all being said, I can totally see daily commuting by train being the absolutely most miserable thing.
To do well in London you really have to know the city (or at least the areas around your start/end points).
Especially as you get towards the centre of London, there are lots of opportunities for "cheating" (i.e. getting out and walking is much more efficient than going to your actual destination station, or, worse, changing trains).
If you want to go that extra step, memorising the tube map (or at least the central areas) also helps because then you can consider your re-routing options based on the actual live status of the tube (I say "actual status" because London Underground ALWAYS lie about the actual status .... i.e. they will always declare "good service" until they really can't avoid admitting the truth, by which time the service is truly up the spout)
> This optional seat reservation system is so much better as it means that trains can technically never sell out and you can always hop on board of a certain service.
The UK system is starting to move away from this "get up and go" model, unfortunately.
A number of train operators are now setting the "Reservations are mandatory" flag on their services in the timetable data, which means that online journey planners cannot sell walk-up tickets if there is not seat reservation availability (or indeed, if reservations have not yet opened which is increasingly the case for west-coast services until very close to the travel date), even if it would be possible to buy that same ticket from a machine at the station or in-person at a ticket office and it would be perfectly valid for said service.
It ends up with really poor UX.
Avanti's ticketing system would flatly refuse to sell me an "anytime single" for virtually any route. I had to scroll through and finally find one that claimed to have a seat reservation available and then I could use the actual train I wanted--which, I might add, had buckets of unreserved seats. Once I got griped at by a conductor for taking the "wrong" train when he missed that I had any anytime (1st!) ticket, which was the only thing their own booking engine would sell me.
This month, every Avanti West Coast train I've tried to use has been canceled, and they seem utterly incapable of running direct trains. I've seen the inside of Crewe quite a few times more than I originally intended.
(I understand that it is partially due to "industrial action"--such a nice phrase for "striking workers because they don't get paid enough"--and partially due to limited overtime by those same workers. That's, frankly, not my problem. Pay your people and run your trains.)
You can also buy a ticket which is nominally for a different train online, which will still be valid so long as it's not an advance ticket. But I agree this has bad UX.
Then half the trains go missing or are on strike suddenly.
I have got to the point I prefer the rail replacement busses.
If they closed routes during normal times, people who take the train regularly could see advanced notice saying "the train won't be available on xx days next month, please plan accordingly" and they could plan to e.g. work from home that day, take the car or a Taxi to another station and catch a train from there, find a bus or coach service, or take the Rail Replacement bus, but allowing the extra time it would take. They could be compensated with extra time on their season tickets and could appreciate the improvements in service.
It's that it is often cheaper and faster to drive if you are not taking a train in or out of London.
> This might surprise British readers, but I have nothing but good things to say about the reliability and punctuality of trains in the UK.
The problem is that when the train is delayed, it can end up as cancelled as they have a specific time window to fit in. Again, the comparison here would be a car. You could end up in traffic, but eventually at least you will reach your destination.
As somebody living outside of London, I have zero time for somebody complaining that the tube was 1 minute late. Try waiting several hours, just to find the train won't be coming at all.
Anyway, it is really weird to hear so much positive about the UK rail system. Any good there will likely get demolished in the coming recession and energy crisis. I have no idea how rail will still be viable during the coming rolling blackouts.
I craved a job in the Excuses Department of South-West Trains, who were responsible for announcements such as “The 19:41 train to London Waterloo will now arrive at 20:23, because of a crew member joining the train late in Portsmouth.” The creativity of these announcements was amazing.
That said, I relied on the train service while I was in the UK. I can only think of one time that it ground to a halt, during a snowstorm that paralyzed the country.
Compare https://www.seat61.com/images/Netherlands-ic-2nd-large.jpg and https://mobile.twitter.com/TPExpressTrains/status/9869664169... . The Dutch ones are refurbished original stock from decades ago I believe. I believe the latter seats a lot more people too. But I prefer the Dutch prices :D
It shows a lot of technical detail, but the exciting bit is that it has the platform a train is booked to use, shown in light text, before the platform is actually confirmed, when it turns bold. Departure boards and other apps that use the standard feed only show the platform once it has been confirmed. That's obviously sensible from the point of view of crowd management and avoiding mishap, but I would often like to have a provisional idea of what to expect.
Because they invented railways, and then stopped investing in them. HS2 is the first new line of rail north of London in like 150 years.
Which unlike HS2 is actually open and running. Unfortunately to get it built they limited it to single-track, and run short trains on it, so inevitably it was overcrowded at peak times from day 1.
It's a pretty nice way to travel if you don't want to go outside of the network (as soon as I had to go somewhere without a train like Richmond castle or Hadrian wall it was kind of pain). Not sure I would want to commute like that though, unlike inter-city subways whatever trains I happened to take at rush our, in either country, were not so great.
>I travelled quite extensively throughout Europe by train in the last three months and of all countries visited it was the UK which had the best record when it came to trains running on time as I don’t think I had one which arrived more than five minutes late.
This particularly struck me as odd, as when I used to commute by train from to Manchester just a few years ago, I tracked at least 25% of my trains as being late. The latest train was 1.5 hours late (going from Manchester), constantly being updated as being 15 minutes late... then another 15 minutes... I was about to bite the bullet and pay for a taxi as it showed up.
- very expensive
- not enough space, and too small rack areas for luggages
- booking that crossed over several private train companies was complicated and unreliable
The experience was much better in France.
But as I said, it could have changed a lot.
If, on the other hand, you need to go somewhere at short notice or you need to commute by train, they will f*king gouge you.
I’m sure there’s a system for how many advance tickets there are for each route, but I can’t find any reference to it.
Advance fare tiers are also not regulated by the Govt fares increase cap, so the operators can charge what they like.
Unless you're travelling on Avanti!
Labour commits to renationalisation of the railways. Shadow Teansport Sec: “Labour in power will bring our railways back into public ownership as contracts expire.”
Looks like someone finally noticed there is something very wrong with John Majors railways privatization.
Scotrail is terrible. Not one of the last ~6 services I have used has gone well.
My favourite example is when my train was cancelled due to 'weather'.
It was slightly raining.
Only Scotrail could be caught off-guard by rain in Scotland.
I took a few detours just for fun, to see different stations and have a sort of Harry Potter experience. My hotel was two blocks from Paddington Station, but I was unaware of the enormous Paddington Bear monument.
I found it totally simple to purchase tickets as soon as I'd alighted at Gatwick. I hopped on a train going into the city and I immediately began to chat with a local. We crossed a large body of water on a bridge and I did a double-take. "Was that the Thames?" Yep!
I didn't have a lot of time or destinations in London. Just a few restaurants and my hotel. But I'd arrived at Gatwick and I was departing from Heathrow, so that made for a rail adventure. I didn't venture outside the city, and I didn't ride any double-decker buses or hansom cabs.
I think I'd done a bit of research stateside before I departed for the trip. I found the route maps and station signage easy to read; of course since I'm a fluent speaker of the King's English.
I rode a few local train lines with my fiancee in Barcelona, and I'm thankful that she acted as my guide. I would've enjoyed taking an AVE to another city center, but those are far-flung in Spain!
Interestingly enough, 2008 was the year that my hometown established light rail service. When I left for Spain, there was no train in Phoenix; when I arrived home, there was daily train service running through town, and I immediately became a regular!