Trains are a fucking shitshow

[Amethystbluexo]

Seriously, they are. Before 2022 they was half alright. They turned up on time, never cancelled, was reasonably priced and wasn’t overcrowded, that’s on my northern route anyway.

Now they’re fucking chaotic, disastrous even. I bought a railcard last year to save money, tickets have now increased in price to the point they’re now originally the same price as they would of been without one.

Constant cancellations. I used to travel regularly and they were fine, now in the past six months every single journey has had a disruption. Either cancelling last minute, cancelling the service halfway through, setting off late. I have been left to wait at Sheffield for over three hours on two occasions because they’re cancelling trains left right and centre. It’s a joke and entirely unreliable.

Overcrowding is now piss poor. I know Northern for a fact are now operating on reduced carriages even on the busier services and it shows. I’ve had seats booked and i’ve turned up to find people sat in them. I ask them politely to move and they either ignore me or tell me to fuck off. Even worse recently a train was so busy, nobody else could even get on because we was packed like sardines at the door. People swearing, getting pissed, there was a woman with a pushchair who burst into tears on one station because she couldn’t get on, not even the ticket man could make his way around.

Not to mention customer service is piss poor. They blame everything on staff shortages and covid but it’s been like this for atleast six months now. I tweet them or send an email and they just send a link for delay refund. However, twice i’ve tried to reclaim on my journey and twice it was rejected.

Honestly, the thought of getting on trains now makes me sick. It’s so so stressful. I would travel on trains each month to my parents house but i’ve reduced this heavily as trains are just so shit. The stress and expenses just doesn’t feel worth it. Even the behaviour of people on stations are shit as i’ve had one man smack me with his bike, and then had an another old lady pull my hair.

Opinions please?

I commute on national rail 5 days a week, it's fine for me.

I hate driving and deliberately bought a house near a mainline railway station, just 5 minutes' walk.

I don't know why I bothered. Half the week it's replacement buses 'as and when' and the rest of the week, like you say OP, it's a shitshow of cancellations and delays. This started way before covid.

I honestly don't how people get to work and hold down jobs using trains.

And the bloody cost. Crazy.

Can you at least claim some costs back. If you are delayed by more than 30 minutes ( i think ) you are entitled to some compensation.

People getting pissed, swearing, telling you to fuck off, sitting in your seats, hitting you, pulling your hair, none of that is the fault of the train company. So you may well ask what has happened to society that unacceptable behaviour has become so common place?

Buses aren't much better. Half of them are cancelled but the automatic boards don't tell you so you think a bus is coming when it isn't. There was a report recently of it taking someone 4 hours to get to school because of the changes, when previously it was less than an hour.

But it is in part. My sister is air crew.she deals with drunken rude inappropriate behaviour frequently. But she deals with it - she doesn’t ignore it or expect other passengers to either put up with it or confront the problem themselves.

People would likely be far less aggressive if they were not also frustrated by being delayed, crammed in etc.

I get southeastern, they've been shit for decades.

Agreed @Amethystbluexo about Sheffield. My sister in law visited her mum in Germany. The train was cancelled so my brother had to drive her on the Woodhead Pass to Manchester airport, drive back to Sheffield and then go straight to work. Unreliable, overcrowded and dirty

ScotRail has always been a shambles.

The prices are absurd around here. It’s cheaper to drive and pay to park, even with increased fuel costs.

DP and I priced up train tickets for a weekend break in London. Extortionate! We’re not paying that.

I remember the days where you get a train to catch a flight without having to set off the day before to be on the safe side.

Yep, they are appalling; expensive, dirty, overcrowded, frequently late or cancelled.

Government policy on climate change is total lip service if they do nothing to improve public transport. More and more people are forced to use cars if the public transport options are woeful. Unfortunately transport is not something Conservative governments are interested in unless they see some way of it making more money.

Total joke that the government bangs on about workers having to come back into the office but does nothing to improve public transport to help them get there.

its Shocking when we are told we need to cut down on using cars and creating more pollution and we need to all start using more public transport … which would be great if it wasn’t so expensive and actually turned up on time ! Buses where 4 turn up together then nothing for an hour . Our public transport system in the uk is terrible and so many cars on the roads for this reason . We need a better , cheaper , reliable network if we are to cut the amount of cars on the roads .

Southern has been a shitshow for at least a decade.

Trains are a great way to travel, I don't recognise most of the situations you mention

You only get a decent train service if it's to or from London.

Now they're building HS2 to continue that theme.

I've been on trains all over the UK that have been fine

And that's not to say there's not issues with trains in and out of London.

The problem now on the commuter services is so many people working from home more so travelling less, and that means less money for the train companies

It's going to get worse I'm afraid. The DfT has slashed train operators budgets so drastically that many are going to have cut services although these will affect off peak customers in the main.

I have lots of family who work in the rail sector and they all say they've never seen it so bad.

Added to which they were all foolishly privatised, so need to make a profit.

Conversely demand has gone up. Maybe not in rush hour on a Monday morning, for example, but particularly weekends.

Hahaha! Try getting to/from London on Thameslink (if you can spare over £4,300) with any degree of punctuality, and you will be diabused of that notion fairly quickly.