To think free wifi on trains is not a low priority for passengers?

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65673622

Being reported that the government thinks free wifi is a low priority for passengers so could be cut to save money. Maybe I am out of step, but I really appreciate it, especially on long journeys. I don't watch TV or films, just browse the net on and off and use Whatsapp. Is it really impossible to have a properly staffed train service running more or less to time and also offering free wifi?

Why would it bother. Public transport is o ly public in that the public can use it its actually a load of private companies. Their interest is in maximising profit not in providing services.

The train's antenna will be mounted in a much better place for reception.

So you build HS2, fares can drop, overcrowding can drop, and journey times can drop.

God knows why it took the UK well into the 2000s to invest in modern rail infrastructure when the French opened LGV Sud-Est in 1981...

No, the problem is infrastructure. New infrastructure gives you the ability to run 400m trains (as is common in France and Germany at frequent intervals.

With a locomotive at each end that's 40m of space that could have accommodated passengers. Coach A on a Pendolino provides space for 46 passengers and a number of bikes. How many passengers and bikes fit in a locomotive? Locomotives can only provide power to four axles so they can't match the acceleration of a Pendolino where traction is distributed among eight of the eleven coaches.

A Mk3 TSO (in the Arriva Trains Wales configuration) seated 70 passengers. A Pendolino TS seats 76.

When governments finally see the value of investing in public transport.

Sadly they'd rather make cuts to fuel duty or APD.

The second locomotive wouldn't need to sit at the platform (if we are considering platform length as a barrier to longer trains) so there would be nothing to prevent more carriages being added.

I agree they accelerate more quickly - as do all DMUs - the downside to this is a much noisier ride and more vibration - and they don't go any faster than a loco hauled train once its acceleration is complete. In most places, speed restrictions due to track configuration mean that trains can't use their top speeds anyway.

It's not poor design. It's the H&S and disability laws. Have you seen the size of the disabled loos they must have by law? Have you seen the size of the door/vestibule areas? Compared to older carriages, you lose at least a full table/set of 8 seats. Then there's the luggage rack required in modern stock that wasn't there in older stock when you put stuff in the larger overhead racks.

Have you seen the size of the disabled loos they must have by law?

Yes - and that would be fine if they actually stayed working for more than 5 minutes. The last train I was on only had one toilet still working, the one in First Class, so good luck to anyone with impaired mobility having to make their way to it from Standard Class through a crowded train. I left the train at Leeds and it was going to be going all the way to Plymouth with only one toilet. I've rarely been on one that doesn't have at least one toilet not working.

Someone in government came up with this. Civil service isn’t known for being filled with the brightest.

They would be better off having perhaps two automatic toilets that are designated accessible toilets only, to reduce traffic and the chances of malfunction, and go back to having multiple smaller non-automated toilets. Yes, you'd get some CF non-disabled people using the accessible loos as happens in public toilets, but it would reduce traffic as there'd be no particular incentive for people who didn't need them to use those toilets rather than the smaller ones. And that model would increase seating capacity in other coaches.

The Pendalinos and Voyagers are not fit for purposes as Cross Country trains - they were designed and used as short-to-mid distance commuter trains in Italy. Hence they had to get rid of the food shop to create a luggage storage area.

It's fine to say you can couple two units together, but then you need two train crews because there's no walk through, doubling the staffing cost and creating potential resourcing issues.

In terms of top speed, you are aware of the other advantage of a Pendolino? It can run at 125mph on certain sections of 110mph track.

There's little noise in an EMU.

Who is going to couple and uncouple all of these locomotives? Shunters cost money.

At the moment those sections of track are few and far between.

Shunters cost money - exactly, so spend the money on something that would improve the basics of the service; i.e. more seating, rather than on extras such as wi-fi.

And the EMUs on the east coast may be quiet but the DMUs on Cross Country certainly aren't!

None of which has anything to do with Pendolinos on the West Coast.

Talking of the benefits of onboard WiFi though, Voyagers have very poor mobile reception because of their design. WiFi gives you a better signal.

If it gets to Euston. Imagine what that money could have done on the existing lines?

Sod all. Trying to get work done around an open railway is costly and time consuming. It also results in something far inferior becuase the WCML was diverted around the lands of inflential land owners who had shares in the canals.

I imagine the Department for Transport folk might have a rethink if they weren't all working permanently from home

As the services are provided by different companies does their contract require provision of WiFi?

Its not like the train services were running amazingly a few years ago before wfh became more of a thing

They might also have a rethink if they had to use some of the provincial services where there's little in the way of a signal.

This would save peanuts, and just reinforce the feeling that everything is spiralling into decline.

When franchises were a thing, it was often specified. When batflu broke out the franchises were replaced by National Rail Contracts and the DfT just tells the companies how it wants the railway run (no surprise that it's falling apart as a result).

No they didn’t

Passengers did in the transport watchdogs survey

https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/publication/rail-user-survey-edition-14/

No they didn't what?

DfT civil servants are micromanaging the English train operators. That's a fact. During industrial action Shapps was claiming that it was nothing to do with him, even though the words "the Secretary of State" appeared several thousand times in the contracts.

I think this depends who they asked. If you look at daily commuters who do trips of 20mins to an hour then I would guess it is really low. If you look at those of us who do long but infrequent journeys for work then it is probably more of a priority. I do a 6 hour there and 6 hour back once a month and I really value it (when it’s working)