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Comment by ciconia | Hacker News Reader

> Uch. TRAINS. They’re a necessary evil in many of our lives. Horrible big tin cans full of smelly people that never turn up on time and make you late for everything. The less time spent on them the better. At least for most of us in the UK, anyway.

Not my first though when I think of trains, but I'm not in the UK.

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It's the British way to hate on things that are quite useful parts of their society. Trains, highways, airports, health system, garbage collection, emergency services, etc all work remarkably well and people just choose to look at the negative aspects and tell negative anecdotes. It does feel like it's counterproductive on a society level.

When I saw "I spend £8500 a year to live on a train" I assumed it was someone moaning about a 2hr commute to London...

British trains are mostly a profit making enterprise for other European nations, rather than an actual public transport network for the people who need it.

(Their are exceptions to this and not all train companies are linked to other countries state owned railways, but many are. They get cheap travel and we get scammed)

This is just totally incorrect. Total rail subsidy in the UK is £11bn/yr. Ticket sales are another ~£8bn/yr Total TOC profits are £100m/yr. Rolling stock operating companies take maybe £200m/yr in profit but it varies.

So TOC/ROSOC profits 'take out' 1.5% of the money in the system. Saying they are 'mostly' a profit making enterprise is completely ridiculous.

Also, while the UK has privatised TOCs, Germany and other countries are also opening regional/long distance rail routes to franchising of sorts. National Express (a British company) operates a surprising amount of routes (and growing) in North Rhine-Westphalia (and probably other regions) for example. It's not just a one way thing.

I am in the UK and I certainly don't think of trains this way. I rarely have the occasion to take a train but whenever I do it seems like a special little treat: I sit at my laptop in a warm and vaguely comforting space, with a coffee, whilst a vista of the English countryside is presented to me as a film in the background.

Perhaps it helps that I don't tend to travel at peak times or on peak routes.

Just a story device to contrast a positive experience

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