So the country can have a better railway network which is in the national interest.

You can hardly expect a private company to pay £8.6bn on track upgrades with no hope of even coming close to making it back over the ten year contract they have.

I agree with E10 that the railways should be publicly owned; they aren't. A private system where there's no investment in improving the network at all is an even worse option than what we have, though.

anyway, back on topic.....

if she is delayed by more than one hour she will be entitled to a full refund on the ticket price. She should be given a claim form by Virgin Trains but if she isn't, you can get one at a station or (i guess) download from the website. Fill it in and send it off and you should receive train vouchers to the value.

There is aleays a temptation to want nothing more to do with trains, but make sure you claim.

a couple of weeks ago i was delayed by 90 minutes because of a broken rail. it was ok, and we just waited patiently in a very english way. now i have got £43 worth of train vouchers and the best of it is that work had paid for the tickets, but i got the vouchers. Result!

I don't know what "scare quotes" are, btw, but I'm amused to know that some people assume I'm "using" them. Whatever they are.

Obviously I - and anyone else - realise that potentially being killed in a train accident is "worse" (is that a 'scare quote' in itself?) than being delayed by a train signalling cock-up. For fuck's sake. I was only saying it's really really bad when you're stuffed by being stuck at a station with hundreds of other passengers and the people at the platform can only tell you, well, nothing, really, about when you're likely to get home.

So "stranded" and "signalling failure" (from the original post) are entirely valid as non - "scare quote" references, then?

Okay, "stranded" wasn't directly used, that was my interpretation.

But thanks, TonTon.

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:
I was only saying it's really really bad when you're stuffed by being stuck at a station with hundreds of other passengers and the people at the platform can only tell you, well, nothing, really, about when you're likely to get home.

Some of my best train experiences have occurred amidst the bedlam of cancelled trains, crowded platforms and a pack of baying, frustrated travellers.

Which perhaps puts regular train travel into some sort of perspective.

As a number of posters may recall, I used to work in a railway control room and used to deal with these sorts of incidents all the time.

There isn't a lot you can do about it except leave the passengers in the station and send engineers out to investigate the problem. Normally when a big signalling failure happens it is due to a power cable failing - and guess what causes the power failure? Rats or some other rodent chewing through the cable! If anyone can invent a rodent-proof power cable suitable for use on the railways they'll make millions.

At least, Sean, you can be proud that she spent money on Europe's most expensive railways...

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:
So "stranded" and "signalling failure" (from the original post) are entirely valid as non - "scare quote" references, then?

Okay, "stranded" wasn't directly used, that was my interpretation.


Using scare quotes on "signalling failure", from the description and way used, effectively expresses that the signalling failure that they said was not one. It is pretty damning to claim that the rail company invents safety concerns to explain away train delays.

Whilst I was off for two weeks, I was on a train to Windermere from Manchester half a dozen times and it worked very well. Pretty full on occasion but tickets were dead cheap if bought advance and even a day return is a good deal. Only one late train, in Oxenholme, coming from Edinburgh but a 20min delay I can live with.

On one journey, the guard informed us on the tannoy that people hogging a seat with their belongings (train was really full) would be liable to pay a second fare and to show some courtesy to fellow passengers, I could have kissed that guy. Another train was about to leave Windermere, lights had gone off the open/close buttons but the guard let me in (which I was really glad about missing that train would have meant a hell of a journey back to Manc...) after seeing me rushing through the station gate.

All in all, no complaints about trains at the moment.

It's not just the UK that is having rail infrastructure problems

I went to Frankfurt by train earlier this year and the friend I was visiting had nothing good to say about DBahn. My experience wasn't great I had to change from an ICE to an intercity at Saarbrücken on my way there but I'll accept that I don't have much of a sample size.

I wonder if people tend to think that trains are better in other countries than one's own country. When I was in England earlier this year, I took the train from Manchester Airport to Liverpool, Liverpool to Leeds (round-trip), Liverpool to the Bolton station near the stadium (round-trip). Everything seemed smooth to me. Sometimes the train was crowded but there was always a seat except when leaving Bolton. The trains didn't seem to have any problems, staff were helpful.

By contrast, every time I have taken Amtrak in the US, the train pulls out, stops to wait for freight trains that have priority, move slow at times, and the experience just tends to be frustrating. Now some of the difference can be considered in terms of where I am and what I'm doing: I was in England for a conference but added extra days to see football matches and so was basically a tourist, whereas my time on Amtrak in the US tended to be for work. In England I used the time to see new spaces, in the US I just want to get to my destination. All of that is to say, from an outsider's perspective, things in England seemed good (barring the cost because of the weak dollar compared to the pound).

If you put the Baltics and Iceland to one side, there isn't a country in Europe whose train network I haven't used (though some of them were "under different management" at the time).

The Swiss are the best, but they have a relatively small country (though one with huge topographical challenges). Comparing any of them to the US just ain't fair. We were more competitive in 1930 (when the trip from NY to Chicago was shorter than it is now).

What, have they moved apart in the last 70 years?

Continental drift, innit?

20th Century Limited c. 1930: 16 hours
21st Century Amtrak: 19 hours

Train usage last week saw me spend 88 quid on trains (unwisely):
1. Thu. London -> Maiders. 21 mins. 10 GBP. Peak Single.
2. Sat. Swindon -> London. 63 mins. 23 GBP. Had to get this one last moment. A week in advance you could get a ticket for a specific train for 7.50 GBP.
3. Sun. London -> Manc -> London. 2hr48mins out, 2hr13mins back. 33 GBP out (standard single price). 22 GBP back. (Bought this a month ahead for a specific train). Wise to have a seat reserved on the way out as it was rammed with Man United fans (chuckle) with the aisles full all the way.

All the trains perfectly on time. I prefer travelling by rail to any other mode of transport.

Right, seeing as we have some train experts on here I thought I'd ask : how long does it usually take to get a refund from a train company (East Coast Trains, in this particular case)? I was on a train from Edinburgh that was massively delayed a few weeks ago, I sent my claim to them along with my tickets about two weeks ago now and haven't heard anything back. Is that normal or should I hassle them about it? It's 50 quid that I could do with, even in train vouchers.

I wonder if people tend to think that trains are better in other countries than one's own country.

Everyone, (but English people in particular) just like to grumble about stuff that they have, which is a million miles better than anywhere else. The english rail system is rather expensive, but to an Irish person seems like it is from the future.

For instance. Ireland has not one but two seperate rail networks that are not connected. There is the one that operates out of Heuston station With Trains to Galway, trains to cork/Limerick (change at limerick junction) and waterford. Heuston station is the one out by the guinness Brewery, and is about as big, as Preston train station, and about half as busy.

The other half of the irish rail system runs out of connolly station which is beside the IFSC. It goes to belfast and sligo, and rosslare.

These two train stations are not connected by train. and were only connected by bus, until we built our light tram system (that came in at 3 times the projected cost)

We've spent nearly a billion euro on relaying our track replacing it all with concrete sleepers and welded track, and we've spent hundreds of millions of euro on new trains. and guess what, they've gotten slower. There are nine speed restrictions on the dublin cork line alone, and it takes an hour longer to travel from dublin to cork than it did in the nineteenth century.

it takes longer to travel from dublin to galway by train than it does by bus, and iarnrod eireann costs exactly twice as much to run as it takes in in fares.

You really shouldn't grumble. Your train system is a miracle of modern engineering. I mean when you consider the enormous number of people it carries every day it's astonishing.

Ireland is one of the few "developed" countries whose passenger rail network is almost as bad as the one in the US.

I wouldn't mind if I either had new rolling stock or delays. As it is, we have old stuff that is always late. My regular train is in the top ten shitshows in the tristate area - I have no understanding why the one scheduled train doesn't extend its timing.

Plus bar cars. Bar cars make money. Put them on trains at night.

I am glad I don't depend on Amtrak though. The trains look pretty nice when they arrive, but they seem to always be running 30 minutes or more late (the best I have seen announced was running 155 minutes late).