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

[Medschoolmum]

I paid £170 for an advance ticket for a trip into London this morning. Journey of around 1.5 hours. Booked a seat with a table so that I can work on the train. Got up 45 mins earlier than usual to get to the station on time. Parked at the station for an exorbitant sum. Arrive to be told that train is delayed by 22 mins. Annoying, but OK, I have built in additional time. Not a massive issue.

After waiting for 10 mins, they announce that the train is cancelled. Not stopping at my station because they are running late. (This is not some tiny village station with one person on the platform BTW- it is a substantial sized station with loads of people waiting for that train.

We are informed that the next train will depart half an hour after the original scheduled train. This will mean that I'm a bit tight on time but should just about make it to my meeting on time. This is why you build in a buffer zone, right?

So now the next train is delayed as well, who knows when or if it will arrive. When I finally manage to get on the train, it's clearly going to be heaving. No chance I'll get a seat. And in the meantime, I'm still sitting here in a dingy waiting room drinking crap coffee.

The last time I took a train was around 10 days ago. That one was also cancelled for a different reason. I was delayed by around 40 mins.

I know I can claim back the ticket cost etc, but how on earth do they get away with charging such extortionate prices for such ridiculously unreliable services? I used to live overseas in a country where the trains were much cheaper, cleaner and ran like clockwork. Why are we so incapable of doing the same?

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

I am so fed up of this shit show.

When I was a student in the late 90s I would use Chiltern Railways a lot to get from uni to home. It was actually pretty good! Nice trains, reliable, and the cost wasn't bad. More recently the line was taken over by Arriva and it's gone to shit. The rolling stock is old, the prices are high, and it's late, frequently. But I don't drive, I can't afford to, so what's the alternative?

And I don't think nationalising it is the solution either. The State already bought back Network Rail and LNER. Have things improved? The only benefit I can see is that rather than shareholders get a divvy the Government decides how to reinvest the money...and I can't say they are the greatest on these decisions.

The RMTs recent beef is track maintenance and I agree, working in this industry, that we are due a train disaster soon. I don't know what the solution is...I've travelled on trains in other countries and though clean and cheaper than the UK I can't say they are any more reliable. Germany, for example, known worldwide for efficiency and design, are having chronic problems with DB right now. The Germans are taking the p* out of the lack of reliability online. Italy's railways (Trenitalia) are majority owned by the State but they are always late and there's a lack of investment in stations and infrastructure. The only benefit of riding Europe's railways is they are much much cheaper per mile than the UK. It's a conundrum not only experienced here.

Completely get your frustrations, OP. The price is ridiculous for one, but at least if the service was reliable and there was good infrastructure it would be something, but the constant fear of strikes and last minute cancellations are demoralising. No idea how they are justifying the prices going up year on year.

I'm from Scotland but now live in England, and with a railcard, it's costing me about £120 to get back home and I'm less than 4 hours away... and that's not at peak times. I've had so many plans cancelled due to strikes, it just makes you not want to travel or go anywhere, when in theory it shouldn't be hard to get to X, Y, Z.

Hope you got to London eventually for your meeting!

Swindon to London - which is less than an hour is nearly £100 if arriving before 9am (and the outbound train in the image was the cheapest option, so closer to 9 is more). Anytime return would be £170+. Its outrageously expensive for such a short journey.

I meet up with ex work mates every couple of months for a catch up. Every single time I have tried to go via train in the last year I have had to drive as the trains were striking. I used to catch the train 6 days a work for week. I'm so grateful I now work from home as commuting via train wouldn't be feasible.

I’ve just checked and those prices are ridiculous going direct from Manchester, but there are alternatives, Manchester to Crewe costs £8 with a railcard, could then catch the Crewe to London Euston? Cheapest £44 with a railcard, which gets you into London at 10:34, so there are cheaper options out there!

I just paid £30 for an adult and 2x DC to London 2.5 hr trip. I thought this was excellent value.

170 quid for a 90-minute journey! I am genuinely shocked at that! How is that justifiable, especially for such a shit service? I'm in Perth Australia and our fares are capped at $4.08 each way (about 2 pounds with a Smartrider card), or you can get a Dayrider for all day travel for $10.30 (about a fiver}. You can also get a Familyrider for off-peak travel for $10.30 for unlimited travel for two adults and up to five children. And once a month Sunday travel is free. Public transport is clean and reliable {I commuted in London for ten years, I do not miss the filth and overcrowding, although the Tube is fantastic off-peak). Just out of interest, I used to have an all-zones gold card for London public transport back in the day, I think it was about 4k in the 90s. I wonder how much it is now?

A lot of the issues are down to crumbling infrastructure (power supply, signals, rails) which are endlessly being patched up - franchise holders have no incentive to invest money in upgrading it to the 20th century, let alone the 21st.

The train companies are in thrall to the unions. Just like when it was BR. Union bosses just want to piss the government off . They need putting on a leash

The problem with nationalising it is Tory governments hate investing in public services. Problem with privatising it is costs go through the roof but the service is no better.

You lose either way.

I totally agree. I got the train somewhere recently, its a 2 hour drive. My local train to the major station got cancelled. So I eventually got the next major train service. The next service that I got on, got cancelled after 2 stops, stranding me at a random station. The journey took 5 hours.

It costs £140 for a return ticket for an hours train journey where I live (major city to major city). I can get a return ticket on an hours flight (which is a 5 hour train journey away) for under £100. It's absolutely mental

10:34 isn't much better, meetings often start at 10:00.

it’s shit service all round. DD had to be at an interview at 9am yesterday- didn’t want to rely on the unreliable train service so pre booked a taxi for the 20 minute car journey with a 7.55am pick up time. Taxi turned up 30 mins late, they then hit traffic and she walked in at 2 mins after 9am, not making the best first impression. £30 for a crap service, she was fuming- she did ring ahead to her destination to tell them about the taxi collecting her late, but it’s still not great when it’s something fairly important.

Rubbish. The staff are now entering the fifth year of pay freezes, they're justifiably pissed off.

The government have stirred up this industrial action, it's worth noting that every operator not controlled from Whitehall has settled their disputes. No strikes in Wales, Scotland, Merseyside, London...

Very, very annoying. I had a similar experience with a bus today.. it just never turned the fuck up!!!! 😠

Totally agree, I commute and have an annual card including underground pass. It's costs me over 5k a year and the first thing I do as I open my eyes is check my train is even running each day.
Last month I got £100 back in delay repay charges as there were so many issues. In the evening they use old stock and the carriages are dirty, falling apart and cramped.
I have no idea how they get away with it tbh

The problem is that the operators get paid the same regardless of whether they’re running properly or not. There’s no financial incentive for them to improve.

Despite all the privatisation promises, it is much, much worse now.

And we've paid through the nose for really crap service and paying out huge dividends to shareholders. As with the water companies, they haven't invested in staffing, better services etc. it's all gone in profits for the largely overseas owned companies.

It's made us a real laughing stock, selling off our public services to pay more for a worse product.

I get a train most weeks that has probably on time twice. God knows what they do on this journey for it to be a mess every week. It's always at least an hour.

The next train is always heaving, obviously.

Once I realised it was every week, I started booking a first class ticket so I could get a seat and claimed a refund every single time there was a delay. The ticket is £197 one way. I think I've paid around £200 in total this year, that's for the ones where there's only a partial refund as its less than an hour delayed.

It must cost the operators a fortune in refunds, if that doesn't focus their minds, I don't know what will.

It is all a fiasco - we are supposed to be encouraging the use of public transport to get cars off the road!

Here's a little tale about the craziness of privatisation of the railways ...... we were once travelling back from France - whizzed through the channel tunnel with no problems, hopped on our train home and finished up trapped in the Severn tunnel, because an idiot drunken rugby fan had pulled the emergency cord which had put on the brakes, and then something had gone wrong which meant that they could not get the train going again. So there we were stuck in the tunnel waiting for another engine to shunt us out. But here's the rub .... in order to save money, it had to be an engine from the same company - so we waited for hours!! There was a lady next to me who was claustrophobic - and getting more hysterical by the minute, poor woman.

@BoPeepsSheep I am using Avanti to travel from London - Liverpool for Taylor Swift. I was only able to book the homeward journey this week despite concert being mid June because they don't seem to release 12 weeks before for weekends. I have ended up getting two singles as I wanted to get the Friday ticket booked, we are travelling day before the concert so I'm just crossing fingers it works!

There is no EU rule about subsidising rail. The UK used to subsidise rail travel to the tune of around 50% of the cost of every ticket. That was phased out by recent Conservative governments.

At the moment the government is subsidising bus travel - most bus journeys are only £2. They have also had to bring back subsidies for rail to some extent because passenger numbers fell during Covid and still have not recovered to previous levels.

Clearly the people thinking Nationalisation is the answer weren't users of the trains previously. It was just as awful if not more so. Total waste of time.

Yes there are rules.

That is not a synonym for a ban. Subsidies existed, but had to be within the rules.

As we're outside EU, and as interoperability across countries (other than Eurostar) isn't an issue, then we now have an opportunity to rework the nature, extent and other conditions of subsidies going forwards

They are utterly shit.

I recently took a Czech train from Prague to Vienna - a 4- hour trip on a beautiful, clean and comfortable train for €21. It was 5-10 minutes late arriving but overall it was a joy.

I have come to detest UK rail companies - I cannot understand why operators such as Cross Country or Avanti are even allowed near the rail network, although West Midlands are good.

It was obvious from the outset that the logic behind privatisation was flawed - still no competition. We've also lost the domestic rail manufacturing industry.

Start renatiionalising as soon as the franchises expire, and be done with this national embarrassment.