Railways. Anybody here from the UK?

[romanof]

I am a railfan and have been since my first electric train back in prehistoric times. I was converting (rewriting) an ancient DOS simulator for model railroad signaling as an Xcode project for a fellow hobbyist and doing some virtual riding in the cab of locomotives via YouTube to see how RR signals have evolved over the years. It is the rides in the British trains that are quite interesting.

Their passenger trains appear to be plentiful, fast, on-time, and immaculately maintained - a list that does not describe Amtrak in any way. Were I many years younger, I would vacation to Britain just to ride the trains.

But... In the general press I see many comments and articles lamenting the decline of British railways, how good they once were, how bad they are now, "The government should do something before it's too late.", etc.

What the heck? The two point of views don't touch anywhere. Thus the question for a native of that land. What am I not seeing? I have asked this in other places, but have yet to get a valid answer.

Anybody?

 

[theluggage]

What the heck? The two point of views don't touch anywhere.

I think it depends on your basis for comparison. The US is hardly famous for it's wonderful public transport...

Compared to most of the rest of Europe, though, our UK trains are overcrowded, unreliable, slow and eye-wateringly expensive. (It's a bit of a regional lottery, too).

Some of the newer rolling stock is still nice and shiny though, when it actually turns up, and if you catch it on a good day it all seems rather civilised... until the wrong type of leaf falls on the line & then everything collapses into chaos for the rest of the day because it's normally running at 99.8% capacity and thus has zero fault tolerance.

 

[MarkC426]

... until the wrong type of leaf falls on the line & then everything collapses into chaos for the rest of the day because it's normally running at 99.8% capacity and thus has zero fault tolerance.

This is so true.
Unless weather conditions are average (most of the time), I have to check if my daily commute is on/off.
A slight increase/decrease in temperature….is hilarious 🤣 (compared to other countries, who cope perfectly).

On a happier note…if the OP is a big Train fan, there are plenty of Steam train excursions throughout the year and in different regions. I was waiting for a connecting train a couple of weeks back, and heard a steam train whistling on another platform.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I am a railfan and have been since my first electric train back in prehistoric times. I was converting (rewriting) an ancient DOS simulator for model railroad signaling as an Xcode project for a fellow hobbyist and doing some virtual riding in the cab of locomotives via YouTube to see how RR signals have evolved over the years. It is the rides in the British trains that are quite interesting.

Their passenger trains appear to be plentiful, fast, on-time, and immaculately maintained - a list that does not describe Amtrak in any way. Were I many years younger, I would vacation to Britain just to ride the trains.

But... In the general press I see many comments and articles lamenting the decline of British railways, how good they once were, how bad they are now, "The government should do something before it's too late.", etc.

What the heck? The two point of views don't touch anywhere. Thus the question for a native of that land. What am I not seeing? I have asked this in other places, but have yet to get a valid answer.

Anybody?

So in the UK here. I hardly ever take the train. Recently I had a trip to London (which is about a 3 hour drive if you are lucky) so decided to take the train.
Cost about three times what it would have cost if I drove (but as it was a work trip not so bothered).
Train on the way down was massively over crowded. Not even standing room hardly (let alone make use of a toilet or catering car).

The news was reporting only travel if absolutely necessary due to the extreme heat which may affect train tracks.

I mean don’t they have trains in India? It was about 35 degrees.

There wasn’t any issues travelling down (other than the over crowding). Coming home the train had enough seats so it was fine.

So yes the UK train service is pretty hit and miss. Every year the costs go up much more than inflation and the service is no better.

Last year I went to Scotland. It was cheaper (and quicker) by plane. Bonkers.

 

[Brookzy]

Posting here to re-balance some of the negativity.

It is popular in the UK to bemoan our trains, it is in our nature. But, depending on the region, they can actually be quite good.

Plenty of people, especially in commuter towns near London, will use the trains to get to work every day and rarely have a problem. Stand-out 'good train operating companies' include LNER, Greater Anglia, and C2C. Longer routes are more susceptible to delays as one issue can have a knock-on impact - Avanti springs to mind here.

Fares are higher than they should be, but at the same time many routes are oversold, so make of that supply vs. demand what you will. By government diktat, nearly all fares were frozen this year.

If you are delayed by 15 minutes or more you begin to receive graduated refunds, even if the delay was not the train operator's fault. A full refund kicks in at a one hour delay. I have not experienced such a scheme in other countries.

Jokes are often made about trains cancelled due to the weather, or as the common joke goes, 'the wrong kind of [rain/snow/leaf on track/insert thing here]'. Recently many trains have been cancelled due to the (by UK standards) extreme heat. People ask why we can't cope when hotter countries do. The answer is that our tracks are tensioned according to our median weather. If we made them cope better in the summer, they would buckle in our cold winters. We also have higher safety standards than many countries.

Ultimately we have the world's oldest railway network, it is heavily unionised, it has had a lot of political meddling and a yo-yo approach to privatisation and nationalisation, but it is better than the reputation suggests.

Especially when compared to many European countries, whose railways are definitely worse than their reputation!

 

[dmr727]

My family and I took the LNER between London and Edinburgh back in May, and it was great. Clean, comfortable, and the staff was very nice (they gave a lot of extra attention to my 5 and 1 year old daughters). We sprang for first class because it wasn't substantially more expensive, and having our own little table for eating, playing Uno, etc...made the trip go by in a flash.

There was a heat wave going on and the train ran about 30 minutes behind schedule, but I'm used to that being a baseline expectation from Amtrak, so we were unfazed. 😉

 

[theluggage]

I mean don’t they have trains in India? It was about 35 degrees.

To be fair (as also pointed out by @Brookzy) because iron rails expand and contract, they have to be designed for a particular temperature range to prevent buckling and, until recent years, over 30 degrees in the UK was vanishingly rare. This year, It's Wednesday.

 

[romanof]

Wow! Thanks for all the replies. Obviously the view from thousands of miles away is vastly different than standing by those painted signs, "Mind the Gap."

Still, I am not seeing what many are saying. In fact, for a while I was wondering how the railroad companies kept the lights on because the stations were absolute empty of passengers, then I realized that many of the Youtube videos were made back in Covid times. But, even later ones don't often show crowded platforms, although it maybe it is that the train filled up at the starting point - they don't show that in the POV videos. I was watching one of the "stopper" trains and station after station, no one waiting.

Can someone give me an example of the cost of a ticket? Say, for a 100 miles or so? Or 160 kilometers. (I suddenly realized that British railroads use miles rather than metric. Another strangeness from far away.)

As to heat, the comments are kind amusing to a Texan. 30c degrees is almost a chilly day here. 40c ? Ok, maybe wear a hat.

 

[mw360]

A lot of daytime trains can be pretty quiet, but if you think about it, you're not going to hear many comments from people who got on quiet trains, because there's barely anyone on them to comment about them. All the people are on the busy train. I don't travel much but when I do it's between cities and it's not uncommon for trains to be close to full and to get seat anxiety.

I just checked the price for a one-way standard class ticket from Manchester to London (200 miles, 2hrs) for this Thursday midday and the cost is between £20 and £45 depending on the time which surprised me quite a bit. Departing at 7am though on the same day is £193 which surprised me the other direction. I think the pricing is a lot more demand based than it ever was before.

 

[Brookzy]

Can someone give me an example of the cost of a ticket? Say, for a 100 miles or so? Or 160 kilometers. (I suddenly realized that British railroads use miles rather than metric. Another strangeness from far away.)

It varies massively by time of day, the flexibility of the ticket, class of travel, and the route. @mw360 gave a popular example - London to Manchester.

The cheapest tickets will be for a specific date and time only, booked 12 weeks in advance. The most expensive will be flexible tickets on popular routes.

A less popular but still well trodden route - London to Sheffield (about 140 miles) - I did recently for £45 return in first class (albeit it is not a 'proper' first class on that route). Bargains can be had, especially if you book ahead.

There are various discounts available too - Railcards that you can buy to get 1/3 off the ticket price (younger people, disabled people, and pensioners are the main eligibility groups), offers if you travel as a group (I guess they are trying to compete with the car and its super low marginal cost per passenger!), and so on.

 

[theluggage]

But, even later ones don't often show crowded platforms, although it maybe it is that the train filled up at the starting point - they don't show that in the POV videos.

I expect YouTubers get cheap off-peak tickets & like less crowded trains and platforms. At rus hour all you’d see on the video would be a close up of someone else’s armpit.

Can someone give me an example of the cost of a ticket?

That’s a bit like “how much is an air ticket” - depends on how far ahead you book and how flexible your timing is. I’m about 80 miles from London. If I wanted to get to a 9am meeting in London tomorrow, it would cost between £70 and £100 for a return (cattle class), depending on how tight the timing was. If I wanted to book 2 months ahead for an off-peak trip it could be as low as £16. However an “evening out” ticket (yes, that’s the actual name of the ticket) to the local city centre is cheaper than the bus… as long as you don’t need a bus to get to the station
🙂

Then there’s “split ticketing” where, if you want a return ticket from A to D, passing through B and C it turns out significantly cheaper to get a single from A to C, a return from B to D and a single from B back to A. There are websites that do this calculus for you.

This is what you get when your rail network was privately built in the 19th century, run ragged during WW2, nationalised, decimated, partly privatised under a misbegotten franchise system that discouraged long-term investment, expected to turn a profit whereas road building was “critical national infrastructure” and is now in the process of being re-nationalised. Just don’t ask about HS2… (or, if you do, ask in the politics forum).

 

[dmr727]

Just one data point, but my LNER first class tickets (2 adults and 1 child) from London to Edinburgh were £310 total, which seemed reasonable to us. It was a midmorning departure from King's Cross.

 

[Bodhitree]

I always enjoyed travelling by train in the UK when I lived there, which was from 1990 until 2013. I don’t drive, so I’m an avid public transport user, and spent a lot of time on the trains, mostly in the South East and South West areas of the country.

There are still railway lines active that were built by famous Victorian engineers like Isambard Kingdom Brunel, with a little bit of reading you can dig up a lot of history about the Industrial Revolution. I had family living in the Exeter area and there is this great railway line which goes along the coast from Exeter past Dawlish and Teignmouth, very scenic.

 

[martin2345uk]

I’m a high speed train driver in the U.K., and I also commute to work by train. The company I commute with, Greater Anglia, I generally find pretty reliable but it’s expensive, especially compared to c2c, another company on the Essex - London axis.

I do wonder what effect, if any, the gradual development of Great British Railways will have on such things…

 

[Richard8655]

I'm a big rail fan as well. Here in the Chicago metro area, the commuter rail system is very good. I ride it all the time, especially when going into the city (Loop) where I would never dream of driving to (too congested).

When I visited the UK in the past (quite a few years ago), I always thought the rail system was also very good (but expensive). But back then, it was nationalized under BritRail. I understand Margaret Thatcher long ago decentralized the system into many private rail companies. I never thought that was a good idea, as I read over the years about incompatibilities, breakdowns, and general unreliability. And it's still overly expensive (profit is important!).