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Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

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Re: Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

#101

Post by koyote »

claxo wrote: post #99
alias_neo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having spent the past ~10 years living in London, I disagree. 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 oft…

Wait, wait- Any rule you can spell in a few words or a link?

- Stand on the right of escalators

- 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)

Re: Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

#102

Post by lazyasciiart »

ozim wrote: post #52
jotm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I lived in the UK, I thought 30 minute delays two days per week were the worst thing ever. 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…

Wait till you get to travel Polish trains - 120 minute delay suddenly becoming 240. 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.

I caught a train in Poland once, trip to Krakow in 2006 - the train froze to the track half a mile from the station at 3am, god knows where with nothing else in sight (may not mean much, visibility was very low), so we all had to walk to the station and wait until another train happened to stop at it going the direction we wanted.

Re: Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

#103

Post by Eleison23 »

I passed through London on my way to and from Barcelona in 2008. I've been riding public transit since I was 8 years old, but this was my first time outside the USA. Of course TFL is legendary and I absolutely fell in love at first sight with the Tube.

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!

Re: Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

#104

Post by scott_w »

blibble wrote: post #49
edent wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a play with https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/Season-Calculator... 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.

I have been a London commuter for 15 years, with a £5k season ticket quite why you'd subject yourself to that pain if you're on barely more than minimum wage I really don't know

If you’re doing that it’s because you don’t have a choice

Re: Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

#105

Post by masklinn »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #100
Mordisquitos wrote: post #33

As someone with significant experience of using the rail networks in both the UK and Spain, I strongly agree with the last point regarding the hybrid reservation model. In addition, there's one further point which I don't think he mentions: the fact that in the UK you can buy a ticket at any station to go to any arbitrary station A from any arbitrary station B (notwithstanding the complexity of determining the best p…

Meanwhile in Japan (Tokyo at least) the red, blue, green, whatever lines aren’t even the same companies and good luck foreigner!

IME it’s completely transparent. You load up your suica and you’re off.

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.

Re: Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

#106

Post by sershe »

I traveled by train around England (in many small hops, London to Newcastle to Carlisle to Portsmouth and back to London) and Germany (in a similar pattern but from Frankfurt to Berlin with a side trip north) and generally found British trains to be as reliable, more pleasant, and less crowded. Although to be fair in Germany I did have to plan my trips and in England I got the all-you-can-ride youth pass that just allowed me to hop on any train I wanted (flashpacking!).

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.

Re: Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

#107

Post by mnd999 »

nicoburns wrote: post #65
Mordisquitos wrote: post #33

As someone with significant experience of using the rail networks in both the UK and Spain, I strongly agree with the last point regarding the hybrid reservation model. In addition, there's one further point which I don't think he mentions: the fact that in the UK you can buy a ticket at any station to go to any arbitrary station A from any arbitrary station B (notwithstanding the complexity of determining the best p…

> 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. You can even get a ticket to Ryde, Isle of Wight and get the Ferry ticket included too.

That also works for Dublin believe it or not.

Re: Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

#108

Post by zahrc »

cirrus-clouds wrote: post #39
blibble wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt many people are paying 20%+ of net income to commute in 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

I've posted this before: a monthly season ticket comparison from 2017 for UK and Continental Europe. The price differences between UK and other countries are stark: - 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: £8…

I pay £8 for a 13 mile (~20 minute) train ride, 3 days a week.

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.

Re: Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

#109

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

chrisseaton wrote: post #55
notahacker wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Annual season ticket to London from Peterborough, at the edge of the commuter belt with relatively affordable housing is £9,500 (including Tube) That's 20% of your after tax income if you're on more than double the median UK salary

Commuting from Peterborough would be absolutely insane. You can't convince me you can't find cheaper housing between London and Peterborough. That radius has got to be the majority of the UK's housing stock?

I’ve encountered people who commute daily from Worcester - 2hrs from Paddington. (One guy in particular used to get in at the end seat of the quiet carriage and snore quietly all the way into London.)

Re: Train Travel in the UK: A Foreigner’s Perspective

#110

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

GOATS- wrote: post #54

The author of this post seemed to have struck gold with the trains he went on. This entire summer, my train trips have been troubled with constant delays and cancellations either because of heat or the constant rail strikes. 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…

CrossCountry are the pits. It’s probably not that there’s no mobile reception, it’s that their trains have a coating on the windows which effectively blocks the signals.

CrossCountry are run by Deutsche Bahn.

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