To think that the number of train cancellations is totally unacceptable.

[MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack]

Just that, really. Every time any member of my family has taken a train in the last few weeks, at least one of the trains that they're supposed to be travelling on has been cancelled.

What is the point of having a train schedule at all if they never stick to it?

It simply isn't good enough.

I don't even want to imagine, I completely believe you, but worst than here is just a big fat no. Too painful.

Yes.... we're currently stuck in Edinburgh waiting for the last train of our 3000km interrail trip which went entirely smoothly and the sodding thing has been CANCELLED!!!! I have two quite stroppy teenagers who were very much looking forward to the comfort of their own, very separate bedrooms, and I'm not sure both of them will make it through this!

To be fair, you'd have probably been a lot more pissed off had you been on a Gatwick Express whilst it disappeared into the depths of the sinkholes that opened up around Purley. I know I preferred the chaos of leading a load of confused tourists to the queue for the replacement bus service to that.

Oh yeah, for example Avanti West Coast has been just fantastic under private control...

I made a 300 mile round trip by train the other day. It took ten hours and six trains. Excuses for the abysmal service ranged from not enough trains to signalling problems to disruptive passengers. I was genuinely in pain by the time I got back (not to my intended station either, I had to be picked up miles away). Next time I'm going by coach.

Train travel would also be nicer if men could keep their backsides on their halves of the seats and nobody had to have videos playing out loud on their phones. I tackled the video player (who apologised!) but no heart to challenge the man spreaders, one of whom was fast asleep and snoring loudly in my ear.

yes my friends who live there say that too.

they also say it’s much better than Deutsche Bahn.

I'm always on the train. Not quite the 20,000 rail miles a year I used to do, but still a lot. I had £200 in delay repay last month alone. I've given up going on the last train at night - too risky. I always leave a bit of slack now. BR actually improved before privatisation, and was better and cheaper than most TOCs today. More than a third of my journeys are delayed or cancelled (not counting any less than 10 minutes late).

They're not. I travel by train all year around and well over half my journeys are delayed by between half an hours and two hours, sometimes more.

OP was talking about cancellations though.
However, let's reNationalise them and give the not for profit Nationalisation a go. They can't get it worse.

You obviously don’t travel up North regularly. (Be glad!)

It’ll be fine though because we have Burnham now, so this time next year there’ll be 14 trains per minute, all on time, and 50p from Leeds to London.

Some of routes we reguarly travel are CrossCountry - frequently too few carriages so massively over crowded and many cancelled - ticket collector told us recent journey they were worst performing train company.

Other routes so other companies we travel sometimes have issues but are better.

It's so bloody expensive as well.

Too much sun on the line?

Well that has been an issue with drivers not being able to see red signals if the sun is shinning to bright.
Trains are meant to have the automatic stop thing if they pass a red.
Unfortunately not all trains have it as proved just a couple of weeks ago on East Midland Trains.
🙁

Buckles the tracks

so no different than when they were private and run for profit ?

Oh that’s terribly disappointing. German trains were the absolute best (including Switzerland) 20 years ago when I did Interrail. It took us 7 hours to do a 2 hour train journey not long ago due to cancellations and the final train just gave up at Leighton Buzzard. They didn’t even seem to put on a bus replacement. The station was empty and no one was sorting anything out.

Northern has been back in govt control for over 5 years and it's definitely got worse.

Damn, another theory gone West. How about we get the Swiss in to run the railways ?
I am so pleased I don't have to use trains anymore and sympathise with those who do.

The privatisation/nationalisaltion is a red herring. They're still run by the same people, i.e. drivers, guards, control room staff, managers, etc., and still hamstrung by the same strong unions who are there only for their staff and have no interest at all in passengers.

I bet the 7% voting yabu don’t have to rely on the trains.
Scotland - cancellations yesterday due to signal failure. Again. In a digital signalling system. Sunday service is a joke as the gov. made weekend working optional - on an £82,000 salary!

I’ve just spent 4 weeks in the UK using the rail system as my means of getting about and the government should be ashamed of the state of affairs when it comes to passengers getting from one place to another by train. It’s a shambles. One journey took 11 hours instead of 4 and a half, and one other journey had me and a few hundred others on 4 trains instead of the usual one for the journey. Two of those 4 didn’t even get out the station and no sooner had we sat down on one we then had to change to another within minutes. Then there was the water pouring through the ac vents on train and the train guard on another train not being able to open any windows because the keg couldn’t be found.

However, Ninety nine percent of the staff worked like hero’s to help people through what was a nightmare and in the four weeks I only saw one display of anger by another passenger. People just did what they could to get through it whilst also trying to help people who were struggling and it was nice to be part of the camaraderie.

But the railway system - oh my goodness. What an embarrassing mess.

@grumpygrape ‘if trains were cancelled due to the weather you are being unreasonable’

Really? People are unreasonable to complain about trains being cancelled due to it being too hot in the summer, leaves on the tracks in the autumn, a light dusting of snow in the winter, and flooding on the tracks in the spring.

Right oh.

Buckled rails, slip/loss of traction and possibility of coming off rails, loss of traction, and do you really not understand the dangers of flooding ?
Bad management is one thing but safety is another.

There’s next to no excuse for the railway system in the UK to be as antiquated as it is and not able to cope with the variants in the weather. Other European countries can get there’s to work properly with many of them having worse weather conditions than the UK does. It really is time people stopped trying to cover up the neglect of the railway system by using safety as an excuse.