To say that It feels like there's no effort to reduce train stress.

[hockeysticks89]

I'm sitting at Euston, having missed my hourly train by seconds. When I approached it (running, which is not an attractive look for me) at its proper departure time a guy blew a whistle at me and said no. He saw me coming but gave the lock doors command as I approached.

Fair enough but I know from experience that they only put the station up on the board for my Crewe train around five minutes before it departs, at which point everyone literally charges like crazed animals. If you're slightly infirm you're screwed, it's a health and safety nightmare.

There are more platforms than there are trains. Guards know in advance which station it's going from.

AIBU to state that there appears to be no desire to reduce the stress of train travel in this situation? Grrrrr

Yeah but if the train from wherever they’re coming from goes into Euston, they’re stuck with it.

True but we don't know if it does. The other stations don't have the same stress.

I really don't get this, we have 20+ main stations in London with goodness knows how many 100's of platforms and they can't work out which one to use until the last minute. That's just stupid.

Where I live (capital city) we have 1 main stations, 2 more mainline stations and a fourth that hardly anyone knows about (local trains only there).

Each of those main stations has 8 (yes 8) platforms, and they manage. The big thing they have done is make all trains through trains, trains do not stop at the platforms for more than 3 minutes. They park outside the city and wait there, they then run through the city on a limited number of tracks via the 3 main stations, stopping at their platforms for no more than 2-3 mins and then away, then another train in 2-3 mins later and so on and so on. You know the time, the platform, you wait there and check the number of the train as it approaches, you get on and you leave.

Then there is a 2nd system - the metro - which is the commuter based system, this carries more than 80% of the people daily, again all tracks are through tracks the terminal stations are all outside the city.

This system works and really works well.

My AIBU was about the late notice of platforms and therefore the mad dash. It's chaotic and potentially dangerous. If avoidable, it's just not a nice way to treat people.

YANBU

I'm fit and healthy and know my way round Euston station, but the mad rush for a train is always ridiculous. Sometimes everyone will run to one station, only to be told when they get there they actually need another station. Do they do that on purpose? If English wasn't your fist language, or your hearing wasn't great, or you're not particularly mobile you stand no chance of making the train. I do wonder what happens to people who are tourists, and what they must think of the nonsense.

Our only option for London trains here is Euston. I haven't heard DH mention this as a problem when he's been to London (he was there last week). However he has very long legs and is quite agile for a 60 year old so probably doesn't find it an issue.

Train travel in general though needs a huge overhaul. I regularly have to rescue DS or DH from other stations due to train cancellations meaning they can't meet their connection to our home station. DS even booked tickets one day only to get an email the following day to say his 1st train would be a bus so he would miss his other 2 connections - this was for planned routine works not an emergency! I had to drive him a 60 mile round trip to get him to the main junction station so he could get to his destination on time. On that same trip away another train was cancelled on his return journey although he was able to catch a later train that got him to 5 miles from home rather than our local station. It's very difficult to rely on trains around here without a backup driver at home!

DH has also witnessed a driver walking away on the platform refusing to drive a train as 'it's not his problem'. Train travel is a joke.

We usually use Paddington and it can be like this though not quite as bad. Nasty jobsworth of a guard.

[quote HardbackWriter]@freedaym You seemed to be issuing general advice that no one should use Euston, which I thought was a bit impractical! [/quote]
For Glasgow, you could go from King's Cross. There's one direct train per day, otherwise change at Edinburgh.

For Birmingham go to Marylebone - it's slower but cheaper.

Train travel in general though needs a huge overhaul.

Particularly for the price you pay. I once had a horrific trip back to uni that went on some mad detour, various bus replacements that didn't turn up or were late. Then it just terminated at a different station due to a driver shortage at 11pm or later. Luckily my boyfriend could collect me but no internet on my mobile those days.

I used to get the Southern train home from Victoria, frequently was cancelled as the driver didn't turn up.

It's a shit show!

@freedaym

Yeah but if the train from wherever they’re coming from goes into Euston, they’re stuck with it.

True but we don't know if it does. The other stations don't have the same stress.

A lot of the trains from the north and midlands only go to Euston.

I'm aware of that hence why I have no other choice but to use Euston.

For Birmingham go to Marylebone - it's slower but cheaper.

The train goes from Birmingham Moor Street though and usually any connecting train will go to Birmingham New Street station so you then have to walk to Moor Street station. Again not great if you have a lot of baggage or reduced mobility.

So if someone who has booked a specific train because it was the cheapest option misses their train because of this, they will have to pay full fare to get the next one, won't they?

I cheered when Virgin Trains lost their franchise. Living in the northwest one is a prisoner of the West Coast line (mind you still to be convinced that Avanti is any better).

I can bore for England on the appalling trips I've made from either London or Birmingham to get home to north Lancashire. Once, a 3 hour journey from Euston took over 8 hours. We left at 7pm, and I didn't actually get home until 5am the nest morning. I should have been home & in bed by 11pm.

No information. No compensation. No offer of putting us up somewhere overnight. No food, no water distributed. At one point they tried to put us on coaches, but the one I was on turfed us out at a station along the way because the driver had reached his allotted driving time. Lucky it wasn't winter. I had to take the next day off work because I'd not had any sleep. There was a woman travelling for a job interview the next day; she didn't know whether she'd get there, and if she did, whether her B&B would be open.

Another Virgin trip - one the same West Coast line, from New St Birmingham, should have take 2 hours, and again took almost 8 hours. This was during the day, but it was still a journey of extreme incompetence and disregard for passengers' time. There'd been a fire in a signal box around Crewe/Chester, and they knew that before the train set out (at 8am). Instead of organising alternative transport straight away, they chanced it. We were turfed off at Wigan (this was a 10 carriage Pendolino so a LOT of people), and nothing happened. Station staff at Wigan hid. Then a couple of coaches turned up.

It was chaos. There was no organisation of trying to get people who had to go the furthest - people were travelling up to Glasgow - got priority.

Elderly people were pushed out of the way as others pushed to get on a coach.

I try not to use ANY Virgin product; the service was so utterly appalling, and it was a monopoly. That's what's so wrong with the system at the moment. Many of the franchises are monopolies & they don't give a flying fuck about passengers.

@ExMachinaDeus

I cheered when Virgin Trains lost their franchise. Living in the northwest one is a prisoner of the West Coast line (mind you still to be convinced that Avanti is any better).

I can bore for England on the appalling trips I've made from either London or Birmingham to get home to north Lancashire. Once, a 3 hour journey from Euston took over 8 hours. We left at 7pm, and I didn't actually get home until 5am the nest morning. I should have been home & in bed by 11pm.

No information. No compensation. No offer of putting us up somewhere overnight. No food, no water distributed. At one point they tried to put us on coaches, but the one I was on turfed us out at a station along the way because the driver had reached his allotted driving time. Lucky it wasn't winter. I had to take the next day off work because I'd not had any sleep. There was a woman travelling for a job interview the next day; she didn't know whether she'd get there, and if she did, whether her B&B would be open.

Another Virgin trip - one the same West Coast line, from New St Birmingham, should have take 2 hours, and again took almost 8 hours. This was during the day, but it was still a journey of extreme incompetence and disregard for passengers' time. There'd been a fire in a signal box around Crewe/Chester, and they knew that before the train set out (at 8am). Instead of organising alternative transport straight away, they chanced it. We were turfed off at Wigan (this was a 10 carriage Pendolino so a LOT of people), and nothing happened. Station staff at Wigan hid. Then a couple of coaches turned up.

It was chaos. There was no organisation of trying to get people who had to go the furthest - people were travelling up to Glasgow - got priority.

Elderly people were pushed out of the way as others pushed to get on a coach.

I try not to use ANY Virgin product; the service was so utterly appalling, and it was a monopoly. That's what's so wrong with the system at the moment. Many of the franchises are monopolies & they don't give a flying fuck about passengers.

There aren't any rail franchises any more..