To be really funking fed up of the shit train services in this country

I use trains a lot. Last year I claimed back 50% of all my journeys because of long delays. This year it's more like 60%.

A train service on an island this small really should be seen as essential infrastructure, run with safety and efficiency as priorities, and not for profit. I

They are so unreliable and expensive. It makes me laugh in amazement when people ask me if I am going by train on my next planned trips. Not a hope.

The (lack of) service is shit. The strikes are risible. The condition of the trains is appalling. More and more people will find alternative means of travel and trains will become less and less necessary.

It’s utterly ludicrous that people pay an extortionate amount of money for the dubious privilege of being held to ransom by train companies.

My car has broken down and I will have to travel by train for work next week. I know it's going to be a mess. I have really strict limits on my time due to everything I have to fit in and get back for the afternoon school run. Not looking forward to it.

The deterioration in the last 5 years is incredible. We are also served by Avanti west coast who no longer run many fast trains at the weekend, so the 1.45 hour service is 3 hours long.

DD went to London at Easter. Train on time until 5 minutes before, when cancelled completely. She was due to arrive in London at 11.39 but bumped onto a train that arrived 2.45pm. Twice I’ve been to visit her at university on a 2.5 hour service that’s dumped me in the middle of nowhere or announced we need to get off at Manchester because it’s decided not to carry on to Liverpool - at 9.30pm.

i had a journey up to Newcastle where the return leg was cancelled on the day. I was refunded the £50 but had to pay £150 to book onto a different return service at such short notice. The last minute hike in prices is shocking

The problem with the rail service isn't the fact that it is privatised. The problem is that it is privatised with monopolies. There is no competition. The argument is that competition will drive service up and cost down, but the reality is that there are no one to compete against and so they can drive down service and drive up prices and the government can always bail them out.

Either privatise fully and allow multiple passenger options, or nationalise. One or the other, because at the moment it is prohibitively expensive unless you're expensing it, unreliable, cramped and awful trains.

It is a disgrace - I only travel by train occasionally but I have never once had a journey go smoothly. Trains from our small city station are sprinter-type - only ever two carriages. If one gets cancelled the next is cramming 4 carriages' worth of people into the two.

I have a disability and cannot praise enough the Passenger Assist service - but they can do everything bar getting the train in on time and finding you a seat. I cannot stand on a journey but have often been squeezed into a tiny drop-down seat in the corridor with people rammed together like sardines - so tight that people who want to get off cannot make their way down the aisle. I once took a photo on my phone and sent directly to the train company where my face was squashed into a bloke's arse who was standing by me!

I am old enough to remember British Rail - it was not perfect but believe me it was nothing like as awful as the current situation. Labour will take it back into public ownership - which is the right thing to do - but it will take a long time to turn this juggernaut around.

@HauntedBungalow 🤣😏 <ironic laughter>

If the railways were nationalised at least there would be accountability. The point of privatisation is not to improve services, it's to remove than from government provision to avoid blame for them not working.

And yet every station I pass through has a a propaganda poster telling me that the service is running at 99.9999999999999% efficiency. Hmmmmm 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔.

Of the last 3 return rail services I’ve caught, I’ve had Delay Repay on the last 2 journeys, either for the outward or inward bound leg. Today will tell if it’s third time’s a charm…

I'm not convinced that nationalising them is going to fix the problem either... the days of British Rail weren't exactly much better.

Exactly. I think the working from home revolution has really affected their revenue, on top of their existing issues. The ugly truth is that current passenger levels aren't high enough to support the previous timetable. And the militant rail staff - many of whom earn a lot more than us - are just making things worse.

The problem is more difficult than saying: wouldn't it be wonderful if Keir Starmer was running the trains. The nationalisation of the past was a failure.

If your car is costing you £500 a month just to sit there (financing and insurance) you have no incentive to switch to the trains.

The thing that would make a difference is if Keir Starmer squared up to the unions. Not likely...

My last trip they ended up paying me to travel, all £78 refunded and £20 extra! Last month I had £200 refunded. It’s ridiculous

We seem to have the worst of all worlds atm - shit services, high prices and costing more public money than ever.

I can't remember the last time I caught a train that ran on time.

Driving isn't the answer either because there's potholes everywhere and if you go into a city it's all bloody car free zones and nowhere to park. But public transport is shit!

I swear to god it feels like some kind of plot to make us all stay at home forever, chatting all our secrets to Alexa and tiktok ready for the day when our glorious new Chinese-Russian megacorp overlords take over completely.

It's awful!
I avoid public transport like the plague in this country despite the fact that it is against my principles to do so, but I can't rely on getting where I'm going on time if I do!

Our train companies are largely owned (largest shareholders) by European train companies.
The shareholders always get their payout so there is a steady flow of money flowing out of the UK (from train passengers) directly into the pockets of European train companies.

This increases the financial health of their train companies and limits ours, meaning we don't get the investment we need because the shareholders want their dividends and those dividends directly uphold their wealth...

Net effect is that our extortionate ticket prices and crap service subsidises European reasonable ticket prices and reliable services.

Yay.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2019/08/15/almost-all-british-train-lines-are-now-owned-by-other-eu-countries/?sh=6f6db086208f

Agree OP they are useless.

My regular train has 10 coaches and at least once a week there’s some issue which means it’s replaced with a 5 coach one at peak evening commuter time (think 6pm).

Which means it’s rammed, people can’t get on, there’s always people shouting at each other etc.

And they want people to stop working remotely and work from the office instead...

The trains are definitely shit, you are most definitely not being unreasonable. My son's train is cancelled all the bloody time.

Labour is planning to renationalise which will hopefully improve things as more money will be put back in instead of going to shareholders.

And to all the 'What about British Rail' people who will no doubt comment, well it was starved of money so of course it was going to fail.

I don’t think I’ve traveled by train in years where there hasn’t been some sort of delay or cancellation. One particularly memorable journey was in the middle of the heat wave a couple of years ago when the train was cancelled one stop from my destination. We were all herded out into the platform to wait for the next one which wasn’t due for 90 minutes. No shelter and the only cafe was closed. Great!

I now drive everywhere if at all possible. It’s cheaper, more convenient and at least I get a seat!

Dh and I already get our money back for about 1 in 3 journeys so if that’s not an incentive to improve I don’t know what would be.

I remember the days of British Rail before nationalisation.

It was bad, and renationalisation won't be a magic bullet this time round.

I was wondering if being outside the EU will be the key point in this. There were rules about what sort of subsidies were permitted. Now we are free of them, perhaps well-targeted subsidy might be part of a more enduring and sustainable solution.

You know how government debt is over 100% of GDP, the deficit is 15% of GDP, councils are going bankrupt, rising tax burden per capita, public services are deteriorating due to mismanagement and underfunding, and you get less and less for your rising council taxes.

What makes you think that applying these people to your trains will make anything better?

There are 4 ways of spending money:
Your money on you.
Your money on other people.
Other people's money on you.
Other people's money on other people.

The last one is the way that government spending works, and it is by far the worst.

I live in NW we have 3 different train companies.

You hear complaints nationally about Avanti, that's our best provider 😂

They all charge different fares and to have to pay a higher price to travel on any train which you are forced to do because of all the delays and cancellations.

No one dares get the "last train home" so you go for the 3rd last train home which means you can't go to any concerts or similar without driving so they reduce the late services further 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

Good luck with nationalisation. The Welsh Labour Government took over management of trains a few years back. The service has actually got a lot worse.

There was a program the other day about the state of the railways. Really very interesting.

Essentially, measuring how much more expensive and shit they have become since privatisation. It's much worse than you'd think!