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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

#141

Post by arcen »

switch007 wrote: post #119

Just to counter the “mainland Europe has superior trains” kind of argument. I find the IC in the Netherlands to be old, crowded, dirty and uncomfortable. Compare https://www.seat61.com/images/Netherlands-ic-2nd-large.jpg and https://mobile.twitter.com/TPExpressTrains/status/9869664169... . The Dutch ones are refurbished original stock from decades ago I believe. I believe the latter seats a lot more people too. But I…

I for one like them. They are fast and on-time. The crowd to my destinations is usually during rush hours (before 9) which is now exacerbated due to the lack of NS staff recently.

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

#142

Post by jamiegreen »

I am surprised that anyone has anything good to say about Scotrail, yet it seems even their terrible service wasn't enough to dampen his sunny disposition.

Scotrail is terrible. Not one of the last ~6 services I have used has gone well.

My favourite example is when my train was cancelled due to 'weather'.

It was slightly raining.

Only Scotrail could be caught off-guard by rain in Scotland.

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

#143

Post by scmbradley »

Symbiote wrote: post #28
scmbradley wrote: post #3

From the looks of it, this chap was travelling around in first class. Which would probably give a slightly different impression of train travel... I suspect he also wasn't travelling at peak times when trains are at their busiest and most unpleasant. To some extent, I agree that trains get a lot of criticism, and only some of it is deserved. But some of that criticism is very deserved...

He mentions one first class journey. That's easily affordable by booking well in advance, I sometimes even did this as a student if it was £5 more or so on a £50 ticket.

He mentions eating a hot meal in first class, he also has a picture of Trans Pennine Express first class seats. There's two pictures of hot meals. I'm leaning towards mostly first class tickets.

Yeah it can be affordable, but it doesn't give a representative view of train travel...

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

#144

Post by heurisko »

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

Says who?

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

#145

Post by superhuzza »

arcen wrote: post #140
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…

Frankly, that pales to what we have here in The Netherlands. A single OV-chipkaart swipe and you can take an NS train to wherever you want without needing to reserve seats and pre-book tickets. When I was in UK I didn't understand why the need for so much complexity when they could make it work like London metro (swipe in/out with a card). Needless to say I am not a fan of the UK system. edit: grammar

Wouldn't work because you could complete the same trip via a range of different companies. So to keep track, you'd need to be tapping in/off each train so the operators could charge you accordingly. And then you'd never have an idea of what the price would be, as fares change according to how early you book and how busy the trains are.

I'm not saying it's a good system - it's a very bad one, having it split between so many companies is a mistake. But the London metro is not a good analogy since it is all one company.

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

#146

Post by iggldiggl »

arcen wrote: post #140
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…

Frankly, that pales to what we have here in The Netherlands. A single OV-chipkaart swipe and you can take an NS train to wherever you want without needing to reserve seats and pre-book tickets. When I was in UK I didn't understand why the need for so much complexity when they could make it work like London metro (swipe in/out with a card). Needless to say I am not a fan of the UK system. edit: grammar

As implemented, the OV chipkaart has its own share of problems.

1. For railway travel, you need to top up a minimum balance of 20 € (okay, technically 16 €, because with an anonymous card you're allowed 4 € of credit), which is already a bit on the high side if you're only need to go a few stations by train and are only travelling occasionally.

2. Changing trains has become a bit more complicated, because if the change of trains also coincides with a change of the train operator you now always have to check out and back in again (and the check out/in procedure also potentially makes things more expensive than a true through ticket).

3. Certain offers (including e.g. reduced fares for children!) are only available with a personal chipkaart – for a long time those were impossible to obtain without a Dutch address of residence and/or bank account. These days they're also sold to residents of Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany, but you still have to order them in advance, and everybody else is still left out (e.g. somebody from Lille is actually closer to the Dutch border than somebody living in Munich, but only the latter is allowed to buy a personal chipkaart).

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

#147

Post by maccard »

6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote: post #139
maccard wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the price side, Cambridge has 3x the population of segovia, and the same distance. Similarly, London has 3x the population of Madrid. My quick Google says there's 6 million jobs in London and 3 million in Madrid. My napkin math says that the demand for the Cambridge route is likely to be 2x if not 3x the Madrid route. Youve also missed over the fact that the Cambridge train is more like 45 minutes than 60.

There are also up to 12 trains an hour from Cambridge to London (Liverpool Street, Kings Cross, St Pancras), this is basically as often as some city metros's. Time taken varies between 54 minutes and 1:29 hr.

> Time taken varies between 54 minutes and 1:29 hr.

This goes both ways. When I search for Madrid to Segovia routes, I get trains that vary from 30m to 2 hours.

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

#148

Post by kn100 »

BritishTrainer wrote: post #138
platelminto wrote: post #134

I'm surprised no one (including TFA) has mentioned Trainline yet, as it addresses a lot of the issues mentioned in the comments here: - buy tickets (with easy explanations of when/where they're valid) - see which platform a train will depart from/arrive at - check delays - see walking times between platforms - bus connections info - handles refunds - etc. It works across Europe (elsewhere, I'm not sure), but in my ex…

Nobody I know uses that app. They charge way higher admin and booking fees than the alternatives. Trainline adds a fee to every ticket sold, apps like TrainPal do the same things as Trainline (book tickets, check delays, see platform, walking times, etc), but only charge a fee if they get you the ticket cheaper than buying it from the station. So, including the fee, the price you pay is still less. And it find way be…

the fee is usually less than £1. Every single person I know in the UK that travels via train uses it. I wish it didn't fall to a private institution to provide what is a fairly basic service, but I think the fee shouldn't deter people from using it, especially considering they don't even charge it in a lot of cases. Booking tickets directly with a ToC is a terrible experience.

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

#149

Post by bbno4 »

BritishTrainer wrote: post #138
platelminto wrote: post #134

I'm surprised no one (including TFA) has mentioned Trainline yet, as it addresses a lot of the issues mentioned in the comments here: - buy tickets (with easy explanations of when/where they're valid) - see which platform a train will depart from/arrive at - check delays - see walking times between platforms - bus connections info - handles refunds - etc. It works across Europe (elsewhere, I'm not sure), but in my ex…

Nobody I know uses that app. They charge way higher admin and booking fees than the alternatives. Trainline adds a fee to every ticket sold, apps like TrainPal do the same things as Trainline (book tickets, check delays, see platform, walking times, etc), but only charge a fee if they get you the ticket cheaper than buying it from the station. So, including the fee, the price you pay is still less. And it find way be…

i know *no one* that doesn't use trainline! It's *THE* app for trains!

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

#150

Post by iggldiggl »

cannam wrote: post #135

I didn't know about Realtime Trains ( https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/ ). I'm definitely going to be using that! It shows a lot of technical detail, but the exciting bit is that it has the platform a train is booked to use, shown in light text, before the platform is actually confirmed, when it turns bold. Departure boards and other apps that use the standard feed only show the platform once it has been confirmed. T…

For full train nerddom, there's also https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps, which shows the data from the train describer system so you can track the position of trains down to the signal level.
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