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National Rail
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Are useless. Discuss.
I went to visit my girlfriend in Swansea for a bit. My train from London Paddington, having had to go into London in the first place cos Aylesbury is the arse end of nowhere, was 45 minutes slow due to being stuck behind a slower train apparantly. The same happens on the way back. Cant these people keep simple timetables?! If id had to pay full whack the journey would have cost me £70. But by buying 2 singles it cost me £29, wheres the logic in that? Is it just to rip people off?
They made my trip on the London Underground seem the height of time keeping.
I went to visit my girlfriend in Swansea for a bit. My train from London Paddington, having had to go into London in the first place cos Aylesbury is the arse end of nowhere, was 45 minutes slow due to being stuck behind a slower train apparantly. The same happens on the way back. Cant these people keep simple timetables?! If id had to pay full whack the journey would have cost me £70. But by buying 2 singles it cost me £29, wheres the logic in that? Is it just to rip people off?
They made my trip on the London Underground seem the height of time keeping.
Post edited by JustV on
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Comments
- They're so expensive.
- There are so many different types of tickets. I saw an article in the paper in December that listed 45 different fares from London to Glasgow. It's confusing trying to work out what you should be buying to get the best deal.
- A single doesn't cost half the price of a return. Where's the sense in that?
- They're overcrowded and often don't run on time.
Give me German efficiency or Russian rock-bottom prices any day.
Wrong.
The majority of trains I get on are on time - and I probably travel on a hell of a lot more trains than you. Maybe its just wales?
To encourage people to travel and to book in advance.
It isn't to rip people off.
- I dont think they are - do you have a railcard or something?
- The cheapest options are normally the best bet.
- To encourage people to use return tickets.
- Over 80% of trains run on time. I wouldn't call that 'often'.
If Reading and Swindon and Bristol are in Wales which i beleive they are not.
Aside, how do you know the slower train was delayed by fault of the railway? Not that easy to run a railway to timetable when someone has just jumped in front of a train for example...
I much prefer the train to coach or bus too.
If you book them far enough in advance it'll be £20. Turn up on the day and it will be £90. Simple supply and demand.
I've managed to get Leeds - London return in August for £14, I did book it 2 months in advance though!
Im sure if someone had i would have heard it on the news. And its unlikely it would happen in the first place let alone on the same journey but backwards twice.
As JsT says, over 80% of trains arrive on time or within the allowable range. But people need to be realistic- if you drive long-distance and arrive 20 minutes later than expected, nobody bats an eyelid, so why is it different for the railways?
The recent heat has caused issues with time-keeping. Oddly enough people don't complain about the melting roads causing emergency roadworks, but when its a rail thats buckled in the heat, its all about incompetence.
As for sometimes being placed behind slower trains, that sometimes happens, through no fault of National Rail or the TOC. That's the way life is, just as sometimes that caravan pulls in front of you on the road.
Some train fares are expensive, and if you are travelling as a big group its nearly always cheaper to drive, but if you factor in the real cost of driving its not so expensive really. But because roads are paid for by income tax, not by use, then the cost of them isn't noted.
You wouldn't, any more than you hear of 95% of car related deaths on the local news.
The slower train will have been on the line for a reason. Perhaps the signaller who does that job every day would understand how to signal slightly better than yourself, non?
Great Western to Wales or the West country however have been making excuses every time ive used them.
Ahh :chin: The secret has been revealed...
The worst company in existence though is still First Great Eastern/One/Whatever they call themselves now, as it seems to vary between train and bus, as to wether it has the new livery or not yet.
They are a bunch of disorganised, unhelpful generally, wankers.
*beam*
According to the timetable they wouldn't.
But many main lines are running at capacity, so it doesn't take much (a disabled person boarding at a local station, two yobs refusing to pay, etc) to cause things to bank up.
Hardly National Rail's fault.
You wouldn't drive somewhere important and only leave 20 minutes, so why should it be like that on the train?
I defy you to drive from Cardiff to London and back for £20.
Yeah I have a Young Person's, but even so it costs me £5 day return between my home and the next nearest town, a 20 minute journey. And if you don't want to return that day you can only buy singles at £3.50 each. I think that's expensive.
But what's the point encouraging people to use return tickets? Why is it any better to travel from A to B, rather than from A to B to C and then back to A?
German and Swiss rail authorities manage to run more than 80% of trains on time. Why can't Britain?
£5 is about right- it'd cost you that to drive and park.
That's how much things cost.
It encourages train use as most people travel in both directions, at least at some point.
And as I say, the way discount fares are calculated often makes it look much worse than it is.
They don't run as many trains over there.
20% late is still one fo the worst records in europe, and we are paying more for the priviledge.
How on earth we are paying more ins ubsidies for a privates et of companys for worse service than when they were run by the government i don't know.
As for the comment being used to being late by cars, cars have a hell of a lot more variables to account for than trains where they have a central control room routing the trains various places.
And if you ahd a listen i think the people stuck in traffic becuase of melting roads might have had a few less than pleasant words for what they thought of the situation
The system we do ahve is fairly good but we are paying over the odds for what we do get which is the annoying thing.
What I keep wondering is why do we even need signals in this day and age?
They always seem to break down so why use them?
We can pin point the location of objects to within a few metres using GPS and relay that information wirelessly to the cab of a train driver, so why rely on something 100's of years old!!
A few years ago I had to travel by train every day to college and back, and although there were the occasional screwups - which are to be expected, things were generally ok.
Now, i travel to work by train every day, and in the past 4 weeks, I don't think i've travelled on a train thats been on time. Now i can understand the occasional journey being delayed, but to have nearly 30 consecutive journeys delayed (and/or cancelled) in the space of 4 weeks is an absolute shambles. Don't get me started on the price of Season tickets. Its cheaper for me to buy £10 returns every day i'm in the office than to buy a season - madness.
Trains are no more expensive than driving, and the same variables apply on the railway as they do on the roads. It's all well and good having a central signal box, but that doesn't make the failed train move any quicker, it doesn't get the disabled lady off the stopping service sooner, and it doesn't remove the stone-throwing chavs from the lineside.
As for subsidy, the roads get an infinitely higher subsidy than the trains ever did and ever will. Roads are apparently necessary though, so nobody cares about the real cost of them. If people were forced to pay the real cost of the road every time they drove rail travel would seem bargaintastic in comparison.
Europe is not a fair comparison as even French mainlines get a service every two hours. Our main lines have a train service on them every 15 minutes.
London's Docklands railways uses computer-controlled trains, and they fail too. That's life, deal with it.
Point is, if someone gets stuck in a jam for an hour because of a failed truck, they don't complain about it, and don't blame the world and his wife. If a train dares to be 30 seconds late, no matter how far its travelled, then its a national disgrace. get some perspective- if you are late for something because your train was 5 minutes late, then you didn't set off on time.
Actually, in this case, a week season ticket is £44.50, where as 4 returns are £39.60. Please note that although i have a railcard, its useless before 10am so i might as well not have it. I've got to gurantee im going to be in the office all 5 days of the week before it makes a season ticket worth while - a very rare occurrence.
In the majority of cases in the past few weeks, 5 minutes has been the minimum delay.
Take yesterday for example, my train leaves at 7.47, arrives in Cardiff at 8.29 and i get into work at 8.50. Plenty of time to start work. This train - cancelled. Next train leaves at 8.12, arrives in Cardiff at 8.55, i get into work at 9.15. 15 minutes late, but managable. This train - 20 minutes late and crawls to Cardiff. I get into work after 10.
I reckon then you are cutting it fine.
In your situation I would always catch the earlier train, ie the one before the 7.47. You seem to know that there are delays etc on this train so why not do something about it?
In rush hour one of the trains I used to get into Sheffield was *always* that few minutes late. A few minutes can make all the difference in the world. So I got the one before. That way, I would have time for a coffee or whatever and be sure of getting in on time instead of panicking because of a 5 or 10 minute delay.
I can cope with a certain amount of delays... i.e. as long as i am in before 9:30 i can make up the time during my lunch break. That means that even if the 7:47 is late by 20/30 minutes i could still be ok. Its not exactly acceptable for me to have to sit outside of the office for an hour till it opens at half 8 just because Arriva can't run their services on time. Its bad enough i have to be up at half 6 every morning as it is without having to get up an hour earlier.
Oh diddums.
A weekly season ticket is for commuters, and the ticket is between 4 and 5 times the standard day return. Monthly season tickets are cheaper again- perhaps you should consider one of those.
Railcards are valid in commuter times, but are subject to a minimum fare because of supply and demand. The only ones that are are valid all the time are disabled ones. Fair enough, I'd say.
As for cancellations and failures, they happen, especially in extreme weather conditions.
If you are allowing 10 minutes then you are cutting it fine, especially as you know the timetable into Cardiff on a morning is unreliable due to capacity and weather issues. Either get the earlier train or quit whining, really.
If you get tracks running at capacity you will get problems. Perhaps we should follow the continent's lead and only run a mainline train every 2 hours.
Just as when I did my Rover in May - I got 38 different trains over 4 days, 0 cancellations. Biggest delay was a massive 9 minutes.
I'm sure you spent your two hours wisely