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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

#121

Post by matt-p »

koyote wrote: post #101
claxo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Could not possibly agree more, they are the worst. System would be massively more efficient and pleasant if everyone followed basic etiquette.

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.

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

#122

Post by dustedcodes »

dagw wrote: post #46
dustedcodes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be trolling. 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

Is that still a thing? I never saw any oshiya when I was there 5 years ago.

It was a thing before COVID in Tokyo. Don’t know about now. The point I’m trying to make is that this thing NEVER happens in London. Train pushers don’t exist, so even if it’s not an everyday thing in Tokyo anymore I can hardly believe that anyone would say “I prefer the rush hour in Tokyo”, to which my previous post was the response to :)

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

#123

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

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 used to pay £68pm for this ticket https://legacy.wmnetwork.co.uk/tickets/#/ticket/109

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.

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

#124

Post by lmm »

mnd999 wrote: post #107
nicoburns wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You certainly can't just order those at an arbitrary station, and I think that ticket might actually have been abolished entirely.

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

#125

Post by pjc50 »

matt-p wrote: post #118
nextos wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is usually price and reliability. 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.

To be honest, I don't think that's a very fair comparison time:distance wise. Cambridge is infamously time consuming to get to by train and that's a very good route in Spain, they are not all that quick. 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.

> Cambridge is infamously time consuming to get to by train

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.

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

#126

Post by maxwell86 »

koyote wrote: post #101
claxo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Stand on the right of escalators

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 ???

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

#127

Post by pjc50 »

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…

Hmm. Have you tried buying Spanish tickets on thetrainline?

(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)

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

#128

Post by pjc50 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #80
notahacker wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peterborough is a commute of around an hour, was a designated New Town for precisely that reason and tops most people's list of least expensive London commuter towns to actually live in. 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 fanci…

Are we talking about the same Peterborough? It's north of Birmingham?

Don't look at the geography, look at the travel time.

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

#129

Post by pjc50 »

thinkingemote wrote: post #41
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…

I loved the Pacers there was something so democratic and comfy about the version with the rows of seats on them with no headrests. Lovely train.

That seat arrangement was because they were converted British Leyland buses.

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

#130

Post by pjc50 »

michaelt wrote: post #4

> British people love to complain about the state of their railways 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…

Don't forget the rail replacement bus: having paid for a rail ticket, you now have to take a slow poor-quality bus service instead.
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