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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

#31

Post by traceroute66 »

imnotlost wrote: post #22
traceroute66 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> British people love to complain about the state of their railways When British people go to Switzerland or Japan its like they've died and woken up in heaven. Japanese rail in particular is pure heaven compared to the UK. Trains are always punctual. Trains are always clean. Trains are always frequent. And that's before we start talking about the amazing food stores that are attached to main Japanese stations. In th…

The Tokyo subway during rush hour is anything but heaven.

> The Tokyo subway during rush hour is anything but heaven.

I've done that.

Its busy for sure. But it works. Even if crowded, its still punctual and high-frequency.

Still preferable to a London rush-hour.

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

#32

Post by ghaff »

edent wrote: post #24
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

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.

And that's not necessarily out of line. Where I live outside Boston which is within a (long--about 90 minute) commute into the city, commuter rail passes (including subway/bus) + parking at commuter rail station would run you about $6,000 per year.

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

#33

Post by Mordisquitos »

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 price).

In Spain, by contrast, you simply cannot get a train ticket for the long distance network if you're at a commuter station, nor can you get a ticket to cover a route between two arbitrary stations if the route would combine long- and short-distance trains. You need to buy long distance and regional tickets separately, and cannot buy tickets for commuter services from outside the specific region. And they are all run by the same state-owned operator Renfe!

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.

Note this is not in any way an example of the UK system being superior due to privatisation. The reason it works this well is because it already worked like that under British Rail.

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

#34

Post by SilverBirch »

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…

> take hundreds of trains a year giving lots of opportunities to get delayed,

The problem isn't taking lots of trains. The problem is N. About 20-50% of the trains I take are delayed, and another 20% are overcrowded due to... previously delayed or cancelled trains. If N is 200, that means I'm paying >£5000 a year for trains that don't work.

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

#35

Post by lol768 »

> The UK has a hybrid model which is also in use in countries like Germany, which means that seat reservations can be made on many trains but aren’t compulsory.

> This optional seat reservation system is so much better as it means that trains can technically never sell out and you can always hop on board of a certain service.

The UK system is starting to move away from this "get up and go" model, unfortunately.

A number of train operators are now setting the "Reservations are mandatory" flag on their services in the timetable data, which means that online journey planners cannot sell walk-up tickets if there is not seat reservation availability (or indeed, if reservations have not yet opened which is increasingly the case for west-coast services until very close to the travel date), even if it would be possible to buy that same ticket from a machine at the station or in-person at a ticket office and it would be perfectly valid for said service.

It ends up with really poor UX.

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

#36

Post by notahacker »

blibble wrote: post #16
notahacker wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And travelling around with the sort of budget that can consider first class and a willingness to book tickets at suitable times (and comparing prices with international sleeper trains in the rest of Europe!) completely misses why British commuters paying 20%+ of their after tax income for an annual rail pass into London consider it expensive.

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

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

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

#37

Post by dagw »

imnotlost wrote: post #22
traceroute66 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> British people love to complain about the state of their railways When British people go to Switzerland or Japan its like they've died and woken up in heaven. Japanese rail in particular is pure heaven compared to the UK. Trains are always punctual. Trains are always clean. Trains are always frequent. And that's before we start talking about the amazing food stores that are attached to main Japanese stations. In th…

The Tokyo subway during rush hour is anything but heaven.

No public transport system is great at rush hour. Still having used the 'subway' in both London and Tokyo at rush hour, I much prefer Tokyo.

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

#38

Post by lol768 »

oakesm9 wrote: post #20
_dain_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far ahead do you have to book? I've never noticed prices to vary depending on time ..

Advance tickets go on sale 12 weeks ahead of time. They start off cheap and once a certain amount is sold the price goes up. That keeps going until all advanced tickets are sold and you can only buy “anytime” tickets. I’m sure there’s a system for how many advance tickets there are for each route, but I can’t find any reference to it.

The system is called RARS, the quotas are set by the train operating companies and there's no transparency whatsoever as to how many tickets there are available per train service/journey segment at each price point (commercially sensitive). The most you'll get is a "there's 2 tickets left", I think for all n Advance fare tiers are also not regulated by the Govt fares increase cap, so the operators can charge what they like.

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

#39

Post by cirrus-clouds »

blibble wrote: post #16
notahacker wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And travelling around with the sort of budget that can consider first class and a willingness to book tickets at suitable times (and comparing prices with international sleeper trains in the rest of Europe!) completely misses why British commuters paying 20%+ of their after tax income for an annual rail pass into London consider it expensive.

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: £85

- France: Mantes-la-Jolie to Paris (34 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61

- Italy: Anzione to Rome (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £61

- Spain: Aranjuez to Madrid (31 miles) | Monthly season ticket cost: £75

Source is the TUC (2017): https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/uk-commuters-spend-6-times-much-...

> UK workers on average salaries will spend 14% of their income on a monthly season ticket from Luton to London (£387), or 11% from Liverpool to Manchester (£292).

> By contrast, similar commutes would cost passengers only 2% of their incomes in France, 3% in Germany and Italy, and 4% in Spain.

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

#40

Post by notahacker »

ghaff wrote: post #32
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.

And that's not necessarily out of line. Where I live outside Boston which is within a (long--about 90 minute) commute into the city, commuter rail passes (including subway/bus) + parking at commuter rail station would run you about $6,000 per year.

But the point of comparison most people are making isn't with the infamously public-transport-averse USA, it's with countries in Europe where rail travel is state run and heavily subsidised (and the house price savings from living further up the line are smaller)
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