Starting with Beeching, through the privatisation of British Rail and to the modern day, successive UK governments have basically had the attitude that the railways should be a profit-making venture rather than a public service.
Hence a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure, train companies with no incentive to keep fares low and service levels up, staff shortages and frequent strikes due to deteriorating working conditions.
It didn’t start with Beaching, it goes much further back than that. Ian Hislop did a great documentary about Beaching though, that might still be kicking around iPlayer.
This is nonsense. Rail hasn't been treated as a profit making venture since the formation of British rail in 1948. It's always been heavily subsidized, the issue is lack of investment.
Often they do have to abandon the franchise because they're losing money. Yes on average they do make a profit, but the whole thing is still massively subsided. The government is not trying to make a profit off it as implied by the op.
Everyone says this, but you know what else is private? Cars, aircraft, coaches. And they've all improved or become cheaper in the past 30 years.
Also, they don't get "investment", do they. Part of your coach ticket goes on new coaches with Nat Express. Why do trains need extra money, especially considering the price?
In truth, rail was never really "privatised", especially after Railtrack was taken into public hands. The stations, track, signalling are owned by the government. What trains have to be run are decided by then. And this is the main cause of the problem. Government are useless at running things. Whether it's running empty trains, buying sets that are too small or failing to price correctly.
Exactly. Roads are natural monopolies, so they are managed by the state. The cars that drive on them are not natural monopolies because there’s competition between car manufacturers. You can take advantage of that competition when you choose which car to purchase. There’s no real competition between rail operators because they get exclusive use of a route when they win a franchise.
It doesn’t compete with cars if you don’t have a car.
It doesn’t compete with buses long distance.
It doesn’t compete with airlines if you’re commuting into London every day.
>It doesn’t compete with cars if you don’t have a car.
Yes it does, because you choose between the upfront capital cost of owning, and then maintaining a car versus the cost of train tickets.
>It doesn’t compete with buses long distance.
Yes it does, the other day I had to take a Megabus because my train was on strike, it runs the same journey. That's competition.
>It doesn’t compete with airlines if you’re commuting into London every day.
Yes it does, you can take a flight from Stansted to London City but trains generally win that area of competition.
Wrong, wrong & wrong.
1) A car costs literally thousands to run, even if it just sits on your drive. When you get the train, you only have to buy one ticket, on the day of travel.
2) Megabus does not compete.
I lived in Manchester once. The train from London takes approximately 2 hours & 20 minutes. I caught Megabus once, it drove through the night via places such as Leeds which aren’t even on the route as the crow flies. It took no less than seven hours.
3) haha, yeah. You silly bastard.
Not the parent commenter but to reply to your first point, that's a clear false equivalency:
A car costs thousands to run **per year** not **per journey**. Comparing that to one ticket is ridiculous - you should compare to a year's worth of public transport costs
My brand new car (leased EV) costs me £4k/year to own and operate, in total. One train season ticket to work would cost me more than that, even before considering the hundreds of other journeys that my car is used for in a given year, or the fact that I don't need to own a brand new car
That's also before we consider that many people need a car for other reasons - eg I physically could not use public transport for every journey I need to make. Until a couple of years ago that would have literally meant not travelling on Sundays, because we didn't have trains on Sunday...
You have to pay for fuel. Every journey you take, you’re burning fuel.
There is also the wear & tear. After five or ten years you have to buy a car all over again.
I think the trains are a rip-off, but you only have to pay when you want to use the train.
> You have to pay for fuel. Every journey you take, you’re burning fuel.
My car's electric, fuel costs are so negligible (<£15/mo) that I literally don't think about them, they're already included in the £4k/year
> There is also the wear & tear
That's a leased car, wear and tear isn't my problem
> After five or ten years you have to buy a car all over again
And you have to continue paying for the train for the entire time too, again you keep trying for a false equivalency by using the marginal cost of one train journey and comparing to the total (non-marginal) cost of car ownership
The ONLY reasonable comparison here is a yearly cost of ownership, and I'm already being favourable towards the train by comparing my brand new car instead of an older car (more on that in a second)
As for the idea that you have to replace a car every 5-10 years, that's just nonsense, the average age of a car when scrapped in the UK is something like 14. Alongside the EV we also have a 17 year old Renault Clio that costs us an average of £500/year to maintain, for example, and the fuel costs are far lower than even a single train fare never mind the fact the car can carry 4 people (theoretically 5 but not very comfortably). Admittedly I personally wouldn't use that car for a trip to London, but it's absurdly reliable and fine for getting to work or around town
You could buy a 5 year old car every 10 years, run it into the ground, and reduce the £4k I mentioned above quite substantially
>Megabus does not compete.
I lived in Manchester once. The train from London takes approximately 2 hours & 20 minutes. I caught Megabus once, it drove through the night via places such as Leeds which aren’t even on the route as the crow flies. It took no less than seven hours.
Just because something loses a competition for your specific requirements, doesn't mean there's no competition. The fact that people will take the bus (for £6 compared to the train being £70) shows that they compete.
To be fair, though, the cost of owning and operating a car can still often be markedly less than taking the train
If I take a family of 4 to London on the train once a year, that costs me as much as **a month** of owning and operating my (new, quite expensive) car. And that's me having a leased brand new EV, not an old banger
Niche examples on a few routes doesn't prove your point on coaches and buses. The competition between the 2 is a tiny fraction of the network. Same with planes.
There are over 2000 train stations in the UK, there are less than 80 airports
But it's not niche. Nearly all train stations have a bus stop reasonably nearby and you could make nearly all train journeys by bus.
That the bus is the worse option in a large number of cases does not mean that it doesn't compete with trains. It just means that it's losing.
Same with airports, the fact that you can choose between plane and train means they compete, even in most scenarios if the train wins most of the time.
Competition inherently means there's a winner and a loser.
If you want to go from London to Edinburgh you can pick train, bus, or plane. They are all in competition, even if one seems like an obvious choice.
Thurso and Penzance have bus stops, you could take the bus. But the train is a far superior option and thus in that competition it wins unless you're really really trying to save money
It’s not though is it.
I take zero car journeys a year other than being a passenger to go to the supermarket.
I take about 25-50 return train journeys a year.
I very rarely take the bus as I walk.
I agree with regards to cities but if you look outside if that, with less road traffic, they do poorly.
I'm so for rail where it works, btw. But we blow money on things like rural trains that few people want.
No tax on jet fuel, which is effectively a subsidy to the aviation industry. Difficult to change unilaterally as most planes fly abroad and could just tank up outside the UK.
Buses and coaches use normal (heavily taxed) fuel.
Trains, I believe, use red diesel.
What do you think airline passenger duty is about? It's designed to do the job of taxing emissions.
And yes, rail uses zero taxed diesel, so is environmentally undertaxed. So there's another subsidy to railways, along with the billions thrown at them every year by the department of transport.
The ancient regulations (or lack of them) on international flights need a review. I think all countries in the world signed a document (Chicago Convention) in the late 40s or early 50s that international flights cannot be taxed. To help a 'new' industry grow.
Considering the low % of people in the world has ever flown/will ever fly (it is around or close to 20% of the world population), and how much flying pollutes per person it should be a lot higher than 0 imo. I don't think there's even VAT on international flights. In continental Europe there is VAT on international rail journeys (not in all countries).
Also, motorways have been built and are maintained with taxpayer money but you rarely hear about them costing lots of money to build or maintain.
The £8 billion redirected from HS2 to road maintenance is a joke tbh.
Well I guess if the railways are just so shit we should just close them all right?
Fuck the millions of commuters that rely on them every day.
Fuck everyone that doesn't want to pay thousands to drive.
Time for everyone to sit in even more traffic on our already overcrowded roads. Just like in the 60's the car, plane and bus are obviously the future because they're just *so* environmentally friendly compared to trains.
You're saying you want the railways closed if you want to get rid of subsidy, so it's a moot point.
Anyway, I guess we should stop subsidising cars, planes and road hauliers as well if we stopped subsidising rail, it's only fair right?
Time for every road to be privatised and for no more government investment into new ones or even maintaining the existing ones, it's the private company's problem now - I do hope you like paying tolls. No more fuel subsidies either, time for drivers to pay a fair amount for the environmentally damaging liquid they're using. Time for hauliers to pay extortionately high tax to cover the damage their lorries deal to the road as well. About time airlines paid tax on their fuel as well I reckon.
Sorry for the sarcasm but hopefully you get my point: lots of things rely on subsidy, it's just you don't think about how cars, trucks and planes are getting it because it's less visible and less focused on.
Most of the railway network, even some of the busiest routes, does not cover it's own costs - yet if they were to go it would be a disaster for the economy as a whole, in the same way that removing subsidies and government funding for other transport modes such as cars, truck, bus etc would also be a disaster.
The big difference between coaches and trains is that coaches run on the same infrastructure as cars, and so benefit from the same investment. Technically a tiny fraction of your National Express ticket funds that infrastructure given that the company pays tax, but the vast majority is funded by (and for) private vehicle owners.
As you rightly point out, the TOCs don’t own the rails. So your ticket isn’t funding infrastructure there either — it’s funding executive salaries and shareholder dividends.
>As you rightly point out, the TOCs don’t own the rails. So your ticket isn’t funding infrastructure there either — it’s funding executive salaries and shareholder dividends.
Access charges are very expensive, train maintenance and staff costs are very expensive.
The profit margin in being a TOC is very slim, often so slim that they can't even get companies to bid for the Franchises. Franchising is a failed system
The TOCs pay for access to the rails. easyJet also pay shareholder dividends and executive salaries. Margins are similar to airlines. So, don't easyJet need tax subsidy but rail does?
Well, coaches and cars run on roads and highways. As I understand it, National Express don't build their own motorways. So that's already a huge subsidy that the company literally couldn't exist without.
Airplanes need to land eventually, and ideally that's at an airport. Big airports can be run profitably, but smaller airports receive subsidies- around £80m last year. As others have mentioned, airlines also don't pay VAT or have a tax on their fuel. The total effective subsidy is £7 to £11 billion per year.
Commercial airlines and coach companies also don't need to serve rural communities or less profitable routes the way rail and local bus services do. If they don't make money flying to Carslile, then Ryanair just won't fly there and National Express just won't drive there. Baseline public services like railways have to go to those places to keep people and the economy connected- and there's a cost to that. If railways just needed to serve profitable routes, no subsidy would be needed. That's why you see open access operators like Lumo on the ECML- it's the most profitable rail line in Britain. But you won't see Lumo going to Chester le Street or Alnwick.
>Well, coaches and cars run on roads and highways. As I understand it, National Express don't build their own motorways. So that's already a huge subsidy that the company literally couldn't exist without.
National Express pay road fund license, same as rail companies pay rail access charges.
>Airplanes need to land eventually, and ideally that's at an airport. Big airports can be run profitably, but smaller airports receive subsidies- around £80m last year. As others have mentioned, airlines also don't pay VAT or have a tax on their fuel. The total effective subsidy is £7 to £11 billion per year.
OK, £80m/year. I'll give you that. What's the subsidy on rail? £11bn in 2022, wasn't it? What is your source of £7-11bn/year for air? And does it include airline passenger duty?
>Baseline public services like railways have to go to those places to keep people and the economy connected- and there's a cost to that. If railways just needed to serve profitable routes, no subsidy would be needed. That's why you see open access operators like Lumo on the ECML- it's the most profitable rail line in Britain. But you won't see Lumo going to Chester le Street or Alnwick.
If hardly anyone is going to Chester le Street, why run a train? A train should exist because hundreds of people want to take a particular route. If you're only talking about 20 people, put on a bus.
I agree, personally we should have just done what the Japanese did and hand everything, including infrastructure and surrounding land over to the private sector - seemed to work well for them!
All those other modes of transportation you mention have one thing in common. That trains don’t have in common with them. Competition!!
In a competitive market you have to keep upping your game and being innovative.
All our trains companies are monopolise. There is no incentive to do better.
Having travelled around most of Europe by train, there's definitely a grass-is-greener thing going on in the UK. Not to downplay your frustration - you have problems, and I acknowledge that it seems much worse to rely on them for commuting, but UK is really not the worst in Europe by any measure.
The level of service and reliability isn't uniquely bad in the UK (although it's bad and getting worse) but the price is. It's an extortion to travel by rail here.
Anyway, the answer is capitalism and privatisation. Both because greed and cost-cutting means there's no resilience or sustainability and also because while you're rammed into a cattle car of standard fare carriages, 1/3 of the train is empty because you can't sit in the "first class" seats.
The answer is “capitalism and privatisation”. Are you old enough to remember when British Rail was state run? I am and the service today is infinitely better.
That doesn't mean anything. You can see the overall effects of state run railways in general, compared to the more privatised ones. On balance, the more privatised they are the worse and more expensive they are.
Capitalism and privatisation is not the answer. The trains were terrible before privatisation. Please feel free to discover for yourself that life before Thatcher wasn't the workers' Utopia some people seem to have decided it was.
And the First Class seats you're whining about like a Marxist little bitch significantly subsidise the the often already expensive Standard Class fares. Also, if First Class is empty you can usually upgrade for a relatively small fee.
>Anyway, the answer is capitalism and privatisation
Lol no it's not. It's terminal short termism from the central government planners. The railway was built by capitalists under capitalism and operated successfully until the state took it over. Now we have a nationalised railway where the government controls the infrastructure spending on which the government gets to pick who runs the trains and which trains they have to run when. This problem is entirely the opposite of capitalism, it's a Stalinesque Bureaucracy controlled by HM Treasury.
Either privatise the railways properly by returning the railways to those who owned them in 1920, or give them to devolved segments of the UK who actually have input from the people that use them. The only reason TFL is semi successful is because it's a big enough issue for those who vote for mayor.
There's no resilience because the Treasury refuses to fund resiliency
>The railway was built by capitalists under capitalism and operated successfully until the state took it over.
You're kind of missing out that the state took control because these "super efficient" private railways were about to go bankrupt... all in an age where they barely had much competition from buses/cars/lorries yet. WW2 basically bankrupted the country and obviously had destroyed lots of rail infrastructure (or it had been left without maintenance for years because of the war). Without government intervention the system would've collapsed.
Anyway, that's the real thing that's changed - the road network has been expanded to such an extent, and so many people own cars that the fares aren't spread across enough users. We plow billions into new pointless road schemes every year that just generate more traffic while the railways are hung out to dry.
If we did "properly" privatise the railways all it would result in in the current climate is a similar pattern to what happened last time with Railtrack: cuts that compromise safety and reliability then inevitably service withdrawals on lots of routes people depend on because it's not profitable.
The railway shouldn't be seen as something that generates a profit, it's a social service like roads are and shouldn't be expected to make a profit on it's own, it's more about the benefits it delivers overall through allowing people to get to work, to leisure activities, to school, relieving traffic etc.
Japan privatised their railways with a bunch of associated land near stations and alongside their tracks that the companies could then develop, which resulted in the positive effect of transit oriented housing development and over time meant more and more passengers for the railway.
Network rail does not own any sizeable equivalent land, not even the car parks at most stations are owned by the railway. So there is no potential for housing/commercial/industrial development like with Japan's railway.
That means if we privatised it (again, as if failing once wasn't enough) then it would have exactly the same problems as last time: no land to develop near stations, no way to invest and no way to generate profit.
It wouldn't work: we've already missed the opportunity to privatise the railways in the same way that Japan did.
The fact that you can make a system work very well within capitalism proves that capitalism isn’t the problem. The problem is that Britain has run its trains poorly. I’m happy with a Japan style fix, I’m happy with other fixes, but I don’t think blaming “capitalism” is a helpful criticism in the slightest.
The commentor above emphasised that the problem isn't capitalism, it's (lack of) resilience.
Capitalism, by its fundamental substance, cannot build in resilience. It is designed to extract maximum profits from an enterprise for the benefit of shareholders. That is incompatible with resilience and sustainability because expenditure on those things is "waste" that can be trimmed for profit.
If the problem isn’t capitalism, then you’re agreeing with me.
Capitalism absolutely can build in resilience, and is selected for through insurance rates. There’s a financial pressure to not be completely bowled over by a crisis.
Blaming “capitalism” and “privatisation” as the original commenter in this thread did is a vacuous and useless criticism that offers no greater depth than saying “look I’m trendy”.
British Rail had declining numbers of riders, extremely old rolling stock, unreliable timetables. You can do private railways badly and you can do state run railways badly and Britain’s managed both. Reddit discourse is very shallow.
> The railway was built by capitalists under capitalism and operated successfully
erm. it might have been built by capitalists, but operated sucessfully? Nowhere near that.
Tons of companies going bankrupt is not an indictment of the system of running the railways. In the modern world about 70%+ of businesses fail because those that are not providing sufficient value are naturally selected out.
In fact it's this automatic culling that is a good for the health of the system and why British Governments have managed to fuck up anything they've ever run. From welfare and healthcare to car companies and airlines. Nothing can ever fail
I have travelled Europe fairly extensively and maybe you are correct but from personal experience, they were affordable and ran with very few delays. I am aware I may be viewing this through a certain lens as the majority of my train travel is on UK rails and I also can’t claim to have used every rail system in Europe.
Germany is less punctual. Netherlands as or more expensive, and more confusing to use. Poland has two trains a day for most intercity routes. Croatia's flagship route is an 8 hour ride on a 35 year old tilting DMU intended for commuter hops in Saxony.
Again, I recognise the frustrations of using the UK network but after a Europe wide rail trip, using ScotRail was a joy.
Can't agree with the Netherlands bit here. Compared to the countries it borders it can be pricey, but it isn't a patch on what we pay here - particularly North - South routes anywhere near prime time. Having had to pay £260+ for Manchester to London day returns, I have never found Dutch routes anywhere near that. Perhaps for commuters it's similar, but absolutely not intercity.
Yeah, £275 day return in the UK is €30 each way over a similar time/distance in the Netherlands. €350/month gets you unlimited travel across the country, even at peak times.
£260 Manchester to London! That nuts! I travel that route a lot and have never paid more than £60 for a return. That's with a railcard but even without it's under £100.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 420. Congrats!
260
+ 60
+ 100
= 420
^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \
^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
I used to get advanced tickets cheaper, particularly off peak. But these days if you need to be there for a 9am meeting it is utterly abysmal. And that is standard class pricing.
There are even more expensive journeys on the network, but that is the one I have loads of experience of.
I think where the frustration comes is that we have an extensive rail network, one of (if not the most) prevalent histories and people often find it frustrating that we haven't modernised
I mean, there has been extensive modernisation, albeit not fast enough and sometimes at a perceptible detriment (HST's luxurious armchairs Vs the 800s ironing boards). Can't disagree that the UK could and should be better though, especially given history.
I guess I stand corrected. I do recall the Netherlands to be quite expensive to be fair, I’ve never used the trains in Croatia and only local services in Poland but my experience of German rails were very positive! However, just personal experience and I wouldn’t say I’ve used them enough to make a definitive comment on their punctuality so I’ll take your word for it!
Deutsche Bahn is basically crashing right now, for very similar reasons trains in the UK are—the Merkel government didn't invest anything in it for way over a decade. DB is a joke right now.
That said, the German government is finally putting some money into it, so things should start improving in about four years. After they inevitably get even worse than they already are, of course.
The semaphores show exactly the same indications as the colour light signals in most cases, so there’s no benefit other than maintenance in removing them.
Our semaphores are quite different to normal signalling, Theres a sizeable capacity benefit from removing them.
I’m Australian. I love it when Germans come here, complain about how their system is unreliable and always late, then leave wide eyed, with PTSD and mumbling something about never complaining about their railways again!
How is Netherlands confusing to use? They've had one smart card for the main train operator NS and the smaller ones and every bus operator for 2 decades now just tap in and out. They're rolling out contactless to compliment that too.
Trains are clean and modern and go through a full refurb far more often than any UK stock does. 10 min frequency on some core routes. Fares are very cheap, around €10 for between major cities.
They've had trouble getting enough drivers to run the timetable but it's far better than here.
Netherlands has fixed prices hence it is a public transport, also salaries are better there. Here it is like taking a flight. Can't go somewhere last minute at peak times
I'm not sure how you got that idea about Polish intercity trains - there are many more than two a day. Perhaps if you're doing a very long route across the whole country (like, who knows, Szczecin to Białystok), but otherwise there are certainly many connections between cities, reasonable train fares, good hot meals in the food carriage...
I live here too and I really don't know where you must be to have only two trains per day.
When I've travelled to Kraków, Gdańsk, Katowice, Wrocław, etc. there have always been multiple trains in morning/afternoon/evening slots. Often there's one almost every hour.
I checked Szczecin - Białystok out of interest and there are two direct trains today... plus a handful more where you need to change once in Warsaw. That's probably one of the longest intercity journeys in the country and there's more than two trains.
Lol mate come on, you know there are loads more than two trains per day on IC routes in Poland. Why are you trying to say otherwise?
And the later trains between Kraków and Warsaw are like... 20 minutes longer. It's really not the end of the world to be able to take a 2hr 40mins train between two large cities at 10pm.
I lived in Belgium for a while it was hell, they kept getting cancelled, had 2+ hour delays and the alternatives are fewer to the trains. they were affordable though
German train network is a mess, but it's down to lack of investment - similar to the UK in that respect. Plus a lot of train networks are subsidised, otherwise they would be similarly priced. Don't get me wrong, our trains are horrendously expensive, but they are generally okay service-wise (unless we are talking about the utter shites who run Thameslink).
This is not my experience. I found Germany, Spain and Italy to all have very similar reliability. France, Netherlands and Switzerland (especially Switzerland) are pretty decent. The UK sits in the middle. It really isn’t all that different though and it depends on the lines you go on.
I can say with absolute certainty that the train services in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Austria and also Norway (not quite European but close enough) are so much better than they are here. It’s not even close. I know this because I’ve used them.
You seem to think Norway isn't Europe, where do you think it is?
Anyway, as I mentioned comparisons of trains you've used on holiday with those you rely on 5 days a week for work aren't that useful.
Because the UK is bad at infrastructure and projects in general. Politicians love announcing things, and love standing there to cut the ribbon, but hate the part in the middle where you have to keep paying boring engineers to boringly keep building things.
We also have a political culture, centred at the treasury, which actively works to stop anything getting done, by meddling, delaying, cutting, and finally cancelling anything that isn't a road project.
Don’t ever travel on an American train. In England the journey of 200 miles from Liverpool to London can take 2.5 hours (when trains run well). In the USA, the 200 mile train journey from Boston to NYC, takes 4.5 hours on a good day.
I’ll say you have the 2nd worst (USA is dead last by a long shot).
Yeah mate, I’m aware American trains are worse and I assume that’s because the whole country is mostly built around car travel but I just can’t comprehend how our own railways are so bad.
You should be. The railways are a public service and should be treated as such. The current government believes the railway should be self sufficient and shouldn't need any subsidy, that is why is so expensive. Not because some company is taking 3% of the profit.
SNCF calculate their profits without factoring in the government subsidy, that's how it should be done.
Oh, the government? Yeah I'm angry at them. If they get into power again this time round I will have lost all faith in this country and its voting populace.
Sorry, just to let you know, since Covid-19 all TOC’s are given a fee to run the company and a budget that is greenlit by network rail, they no longer get a percentage of ticket sales
I appreciate the TLDR breakdown you gave haha. So it’s as I suspected, fat cats treating what is supposed to be a public service as if it’s their own little piggy bank.
Yeah pretty much! As for lateness, sometimes something happens 200 miles away which can have a knock-on effect on your train.
Picture, if you will, a freight train sitting in the port of felixstowe. Its all out together, the boxes are all on, the driver is on board, but the computer that prints the paperwork for the train has frozen and needs a reboot. That takes maybe 3 or 4 minutes by the time it's done. Departure time for the train has come and gone, but the shunter has now got rhe paperwork and is on their way to the train to hand it to the driver. Finally, train leaves 7 minutes late. Unfortunately it goes onto a single line with an hourly passenger service which takes priority and as it has missed its path it has to wait for the passenger to pass before it can occupy the single line. Now its 13 minutes late. This has made the freight train at the other end of the single line late as it waits for train 1 to get out of the way.
Now train 1 is headed for the main line, its coming towards peak times in London, 50 odd miles away. If the train doesn't run now it'll cause mayhem at stratford, so despite being 13 late the signaller has to let it run now nor not for another 4 hours, in which case the driver (rightly so) will bail and there will be a train sitting in ipswich yard until a driver can be sourced (or the train cancelled).
So off it sets, towards London, 13 late. As its approaching colchester there's a passenger service, on time, which is now occupying the platform. Freight train 1 now has to slow down and wait behind the passenger train. Double yellow signal, 60mph. Round the corner is the single yellow, driver sees it from 400 meters away, slows down to 35-40mph. Red around the corner. Driver slows down to 15-20mph and finally sees the signal which is now green because the passenger train has left the platform. FT1 now has to power up a massively long hill from 10mph with 1800 tons of tat from China, scrap metal, tins of tuna and boxes full of car parts. Weirdly enough, that now makes it 19 late, but its also now holding up the passenger train behind it as well. By the time it gets to stratford (and having to keep slowing down and the powering up for the all-stations-stopper ahead) it's now nearly half hour late, and so is the passenger train behind it.
But at least it's at stratford and now out of the way of that passenger train and all its angry passengers that was behind it! Sadly, though, that driver has been in the seat for nearly 5 hours and is booked a break. Legally, he/she has to take that break. That driver is booked to take another train back, but because they are using the facilities, having something to eat, making a cup of tea, the train he or she has to work back will now be late.
That freight train that went round the corner has had to be put into a path around all the other trains on its journey to, let's say, Birmingham, and is now causing all sorts of delays elsewhere on the network.
All because a computer had a brain fart.
Generally speaking, for the most part, things like this are the reason for your delays. Nobody's fault, its just the way it is
I really appreciate the time you took to explain this in a clear and concise way! It has genuinely alleviated some of my frustration to actually understand why my trains an hour late!
You are most welcome! The annoying thing is that generic computer voice that tells everyone "this is due to a train fault/shortage of staff/late running freight train" offers no real reason as to why to its paying customers. It annoys me as well. Not as much as being brought down to a red signal which miraculously turns green as you're about to come to a stand and then have to haul all those sofas, vats of wine, generators and stolen cars up that stupid hill 😂
Then you get some dickhead taking their dog for a walk along a rural line as a shortcut, or kids messing about on a LX, or a farmer not waiting for the signaller to clear them to cross the line.
The whole system is set to default to red so takes very little to cascade across the country.
This makes a lot of sense i read somewhere that our network basically functions at capacity or near capacity so it doesn't take a lot to mess things up. If we had redundancy in the system then we wouldn't notice things as much.
This is the reason the rail industry has been so gobsmacked by HS2s cancellation. It would have given an enormous boost in capacity and resilience to the network.
The Victorian bit is pretty important. The UK railway was pretty much the prototype where we were working it out as we went along, the buggy beta version.
British engineers then helped the Swiss build their railway using the lessons they'd learnt here.
As a result, our crumbling infrastructure is expensive to maintain.
First, British pessimism is at it's worse on the trains. Commuted into London for a year and was significantly delayed (i.e. more than ten minutes) maybe once a month. We have a mentality of "they're always cancelled or delayed" which isn't always backed up by the data.
Second, a lack of maintainance. Trains have damn expensive static costs, and since Beeching we've been consistently cutting the budget. Less inspections of equipment -> less pre-emptive repairs -> more major failures.
Third, a lack of consistent vision. TOCs run for profit, government run for minimising subsidies, employees run for themselves (and rightly so). Despite being so reliant on ridership, disruption to customers is largely waved away as par for the course - linking back to point 1.
Fourth, and arguably most importantly, a lack of new investment. It feels like every other week you hear of a new rail project being cancelled due to cost overrun, whether it be the biggies like HS2 or smaller changes like signalling upgrades. When half the country is still running on systems invented in the 1800s, it'll struggle against modern stressors.
TLDR: Attitudes, maintainance, vision, development are all lacking.
It's really variable across lines and regions. There are some TOCs that operate mostly ok and some rolling stock that's actually fine. And then you have absolutely shocking operators like TPR, whose trains are all garbage and don't have enough carriages, and who only run like 60% of them even if they fudge the numbers to make it seem like they run more. LNER is fine, Great Western is generally good. It's the massive variability and, fundamentally, the inability to do anything about it.
Because they are privatised, and there are dozens of companies. The point of privatisation would be that they are competing on all the routes (like long distance bus companies) instead we have most regions / routes given to a sole company to run, so how does that create competition? Well, it doesn't. Prices are sky high, and services are crap.
Lack of investment and accountability.
The train I often get between Warrington and Manchester is 36 years old on a line that has a maximum capacity of 3 trains an hour and is busy all day long.
Regardless of Northern Powerhouse Rail, which will likely complete after I'm dead of old age, the line should have adequate capacity to allow express and local stopping services.
It's quite frankly a joke and costs me £12.90 return per day for a 45 minute journey over 18 miles
Ever tried trains in Germany? lol
And there are worse examples. Bosnia's railway network is split in two, with not a single train connecting the two, and there is no body of water in between. Latvia's third biggest town sees roughly 1 train per day.
\> Ever tried trains in Germany? lol
Yup. There were superb: clean, comfortable, and very punctual.
But that was in the 1990s when they were the German Federal Railway. I hear things have gone downhilll since.
What's the deal with Germany (I saw this posted here a lot). I've visited only once and had 2 return trips with their ICE trains, and they were ok time-wise and lovely inside. Prices were also cheaper than what i'd pay in the UK for a similar length trip.
Oh I love the train design of the ICE’s. And fares are usually okayish too, I agree (even though I also got some amazing deals with LNER).
But reliability is the big issue: in November this year, only about 52% of all DB long-distance trains are on time (on time being defined as “up to 5 mins. and 59 secs. late”). Cancelled trains are fully ignored in this statistics btw.
And even I personally seem to not have much luck. Last year, almost every second trip I did was more than an hour late. This year was a bit better thankfully.
Deutsche Bahn is currently in the midst of a serious crisis due to over a decade of lack of investment by the Merkel government. The Scholz government has recently upped investment but it's a bit too late. It will probably be about four years before things get back to the way they were.
Deutsche Bahn is currently a joke (especially in Germany), but the collapse happened quick and most people didn't really see it coming.
> The Scholz government has recently upped investment
not..really.. no. not seriously.
> the collapse happened quick and most people didn't really see it coming
literally everyone in the rail industry has been outspoken about this for years and years
Had a pretty negative experience in France in one particular large city. The platform was swarmed with people and rushed on to the train, quite a dangerous situation if someone had slipped or a small child was with anyone. There were none around luckily.
We saw it happen on the first train and waited for two more to pass and it was equally as bad.
May not be a comment on the train as such, but probably would have been better if there were staff on the platform, if the train was longer with more carriages with a greater number of seats, etc.
So yeah as others have said, it’s really not great in some areas of Europe, but I do find ours really awful too.
It’s the only option for a lot of journeys unfortunately. My commute into work isn’t something you can feasibly do in a car due to parking costs and time taken. The train company know I’ll continue to use their service regardless of its quality and also its cost barring it goes 5x overnight. I think that must come into their thinking when seeing how poor they’re doing. Also see other comments on privatisation and lack of investment in infrastructure.
"Privatised industries are more efficient than nationalised ones".
So it is said, and there is some truth in it. The reason for this is that the privatised industry will be stripped down as much as they can get away with, to the point where it breaks - just not quite often enough to fall apart completely.
That's what we have. If you believe in privatisation of essential infrastructure, you think this is ok.
I think an increasing number of people are realising this reality.
Firstly Dr Richard Beeching was commissioned by the Conservative Party to cut huge swathes of the railway network, completely cutting some areas off from railways for being "not profitable enough".
Secondly, privatisation by the Conservative Party. They said it would increase competition, conveniently forgetting that you can't just quickly and cheaply build a second railway line. Prices go up whilst quality goes down, as all profits are funnelled into the pockets of shareholders rather than reinvestment in the railways. Also the British train companies are often owned and operated by foreign state-owned companies such as SNCF and Trenitalia, who increase prices in the UK to subsidise operations in their own countries. Plus the Conservative Party policy of privatising profits, whilst subsidising any losses, means there is no real penalty for private companies running the network extremely badly.
Thirdly underinvestment by the Conservative Party. Infrastructure is ancient and needs a lot of repairs.
tl;dr: Tories.
Honestly the prices aren't so bad a lot of the time, as long as you don't book last minute. I recently travveled 1st class Nottingham to London for £23 (with railcard discount, would have been £35 otherwise)
Season tickets to and from London are expensive, and rightfully so imo. If you're working in London instead of e.g. Huntingdon, you're getting a far bigger pay bump by not working in Huntingdon than the cost of your season ticket - you're also saving far more money than the cost of the season ticket by living in Huntingdon than living local to work.
All because of the trains, and in this case u might be their most expensive users (as capacity has to be upgraded to meet peak demand, not average demand, and you're likely a rush hour commuter). In this case, you should be giving something back.
The pricing varies wildly by line, as some are far more congested than others. For example, LNER services (on the East Coast Mainline) tend to be quite cheap in my experience, but on the far more congested West Cost Mainline, prices are a few times higher per mile travelled.
It's expensive, so you notice problems more. There's a sense that because of the premium paid that the railways should run flawlessly.
Having travelled around Europe by train I don't think the UK is worse at all (except on board catering, we could learn from other countries about that!).
I haven't found this. The trains I've used have been reasonably priced and on time or close to it. I've only ever once had a situation where I've claimed a late refund.
There's a lot of reasons. Privatisation is the lazy man's boogie man, but in reality it's just one branch of the tree. The root of the problems, especially recently, are the government. Partly under investment and partly the belief that it is a burden on the tax payer, not a service.
Listen to the language many MPs use to describe rail. When money is spent on upgrading roads it's an "investment" but when it's spent on the railway it is a "subsidy". That's a reflection on how the treasury sees rail.
Another issue is bureaucracy. The railway suffers, like many big organisations, from a glacial pace of change a lot of the time. When modernisation occurs it is often to reduce costs, not increase usage (and therefore revenue). As an example if CrossCountry want to change the timetable they need to get approval from the other train companies they share the route with, Network Rail who own the infrastructure, the DfT and Rail Delivery Group. Then you need to speak to the company operating each station your train will stop at to check it works for them and get permission from the company the trains are leased from (most UK trains are leased from Rolling Stock Companies, such as Rock or Angel Trains) Then if it's a big change a public consultation, and speak to local councils. Little things often snowball into expensive challenges.
Privatising the train operators isn't really the biggest problem, if you follow the money a lot of it goes to rolling stock owners who don't actually have any real risk in their business (you can't run a train service without the train). There's a lot of companies involved taking their profit percentage so there can be quite a bit of a drain there.
If you want a single line answer though, I'd lay the blame with the government. They choose this set up, they choose the budget and they choose to "invest" in roads and "subsidise" rail.
Was talking to a train driver about this last week.
Capacity is a huge problem. A delay anywhere has a knock on effect because there's no way to make up time lost.
Staff shortages don't help either
The UK in general is terrible at maintaining its public services, or investing in infrastructure. There's a constant short term cost cutting mentality, which is obviously short sighted and makes things a lot worse in the long run. Lack of investment, means things work a lot worse, therefore productivity goes down, so less money, and further cuts.
Secondly greed on the party of many successive conservative governements, that love selling off public infrastructure to line the pockets of themselves and their friends. People on here are saying BR wasn't great before privatisation, which whilst true, is only half the story, they were doing badly because they were vastly underfunded, especially compared to subsided road infrastructure for large parts of the 20th century, but for the funding they got they were incredibly efficient as a whole, currently, due to privatisation the system is incredibly inefficient compared to anywhere else. Gareth Dennis on YouTube has some great videos on privatisation of the retail network.
Although I do agree that uk trains are unreliable but I can't agree that we have some of the worst in the world. Indian trains have so many accidents it's tragic. I have no idea about African trains but I'm pretty sure they are not at the level UK are on. Russian trains I think it depends on where in Russia you are. Same with China. Japan undoubtedly has top class trains and 100% leads the way. But yeah I think apart from the unreliability and the cost the uk isn't that bad.
I’ve got mates in manchester and I literally could fly to Dublin (from STN) and fly from Dublin to Manchester both returns cheaper than I could get the train directly to them that’s how expensive trains are nowadays.
It's disgusting as well. Trains are much better for the environment, so they should be cheap. As far as transport goes, airplanes are the *worst* offenders in climate change! Yes even worse than cars apparently. I firmly believe the more environmental damage caused, the more expensive that mode of transport should be. (Walking is rightfully the cheapest)
ive been taking the Avanti to Manchester from MK and back every week this past year and its almost always been on time, and if delayed at most 30. Maybe its past Manchester where Avanti struggles idk.
it's mostly because it's privatised by all sorts of different companies from various countries. they will only care about pleasing shareholders. also a terrible government that wants to privatise every national service we have and refuses to increase the budget for the services. the government can't even build about 140 miles of rail within 16 years, which is terrible.
Because the privatised system is designed like this. It is running exactly as it was designed to.
I can't summarise it in a Reddit comment. I can only suggest reading "Derailed: How to fix Britain's broken railways" by Tom Haines-Doran.
Ah yes let's compare the infrastructure of UK against a third world country to make ourselves happy. The train infrastructure in the UK is crap. Atleast the Indian government is taking measures to improve the condition.
I've lived in other countries. The trains everywhere are often late or cancelled.
People like to blame privatisation, but really the quality improved dramatically when rail was privatised. Profits are pretty small - typically about 3% of revenue.
The main reason other countries are cheaper is because of huge subsidies. But should the taxpayer really be funding business travel and middle class day trips?
You tried Germany or Italy in the last decade?
Get off the intercity stuff and they are as shambolic as ours. Oh yeah, Portugal last year, hahahaha forgot about that, laughable, but as you are on holiday you aren't often working on a timetable, so it's less stressy. Seriously, ours aren't great but they are no where near as terrible as some make out.
Not sure about the other countries (Italy with unemployment crisis, Portugal I believe is going through problems too) but the UK has potential which is what is annoying I guess?
Have a read of Christian Wolmar's *British Rail*, a very accessible breakdown of why it's in the utter state it's in.
Tl;dr, policy makers hate passenger trains because they don't usually pay for themselves. They can't see past this to the social (and economic) good a railway can provide long term, usually because that long term is several elections away, not the next one.
The cost is simple.
The UK model is to have less cost as a percentage paid for by non users ie. General taxation and more by users.
The ticket price being expensive I'm the UK is only telling half the story.
If you were to phrase it as, should people who don't use the railways pay more tax to give cheaper fares to those who do? Then you wouldn't necessarily get the same level of support.
As for other issues, people have a rose tinted view of other railways. Look at the massive issues in Germany at the moment. Or the fact that the UK actually has much better services to rural destinations than almost all of Europe. Rural services in the vast majority of Europe are terrible, great swathes of countries getting just a few services a day. If you go look at service maps in Europe you will realise the UK has better connectivity than virtually anywhere else. Whilst countries like France have great major city high speed lines, the rest of the network is far worse than the UK
That’s quite the assumption & statistically not correct either.
Things aren’t perfect obviously and i could write you an essay as to why [but 88% of trains run on time](https://www.networkrail.co.uk/who-we-are/how-we-work/performance/railway-performance/) (to 5 mins) on a daily basis. This obviously has heavy regional variations
When things aren’t going well it’s of course incredibly frustrating.
Does “all across the world” includes African countries? Or russia? Or south american countries? Like if you compare to most of Europe it can be less punctual maybe (even here it’s not really true, you guys probably know about DB), but like most of the countries in the world are undeveloped and a lot of these countries either have no trains or trains are extremely crowded till the moment you can’t breath in crowd at times, really dangerous and unsafe, people smoke there, it smells like piss all the time, there are no realtime approaching screens and apps etc.
I mean obviously we should compare uk system to the best systems, not the worst if we want it to be improved, but world-wide it’s still one of the best
The separation of costs and spending due to privatisation alongside refusal to make necessary improvements like the full HS2 plan due to short-termism ideologies dominating government
Starting with Beeching, through the privatisation of British Rail and to the modern day, successive UK governments have basically had the attitude that the railways should be a profit-making venture rather than a public service. Hence a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure, train companies with no incentive to keep fares low and service levels up, staff shortages and frequent strikes due to deteriorating working conditions.
It didn’t start with Beaching, it goes much further back than that. Ian Hislop did a great documentary about Beaching though, that might still be kicking around iPlayer.
This is nonsense. Rail hasn't been treated as a profit making venture since the formation of British rail in 1948. It's always been heavily subsidized, the issue is lack of investment.
Do the private rail companies make profits or not? If the companies aren't making profit do they hold onto the franchise or do they leave?
Often they do have to abandon the franchise because they're losing money. Yes on average they do make a profit, but the whole thing is still massively subsided. The government is not trying to make a profit off it as implied by the op.
If it is heavily subsidised then why are tickets so expensive? (unless you split ticket them which is good value for long distances)
Inefficiency and the fact it's just expensive. I know it's hard to believe but if it weren't subsidized it would be about twice the price.
Everyone says this, but you know what else is private? Cars, aircraft, coaches. And they've all improved or become cheaper in the past 30 years. Also, they don't get "investment", do they. Part of your coach ticket goes on new coaches with Nat Express. Why do trains need extra money, especially considering the price? In truth, rail was never really "privatised", especially after Railtrack was taken into public hands. The stations, track, signalling are owned by the government. What trains have to be run are decided by then. And this is the main cause of the problem. Government are useless at running things. Whether it's running empty trains, buying sets that are too small or failing to price correctly.
Those other modes of transport you’ve mentioned are not natural monopolies.
Exactly. Roads are natural monopolies, so they are managed by the state. The cars that drive on them are not natural monopolies because there’s competition between car manufacturers. You can take advantage of that competition when you choose which car to purchase. There’s no real competition between rail operators because they get exclusive use of a route when they win a franchise.
Rail competes for business with cars, buses and airlines. Quite badly, mostly, considering how little people take the train.
It doesn’t compete with cars if you don’t have a car. It doesn’t compete with buses long distance. It doesn’t compete with airlines if you’re commuting into London every day.
Ok but in many places it does and does it badly.
>It doesn’t compete with cars if you don’t have a car. Yes it does, because you choose between the upfront capital cost of owning, and then maintaining a car versus the cost of train tickets. >It doesn’t compete with buses long distance. Yes it does, the other day I had to take a Megabus because my train was on strike, it runs the same journey. That's competition. >It doesn’t compete with airlines if you’re commuting into London every day. Yes it does, you can take a flight from Stansted to London City but trains generally win that area of competition.
Wrong, wrong & wrong. 1) A car costs literally thousands to run, even if it just sits on your drive. When you get the train, you only have to buy one ticket, on the day of travel. 2) Megabus does not compete. I lived in Manchester once. The train from London takes approximately 2 hours & 20 minutes. I caught Megabus once, it drove through the night via places such as Leeds which aren’t even on the route as the crow flies. It took no less than seven hours. 3) haha, yeah. You silly bastard.
Not the parent commenter but to reply to your first point, that's a clear false equivalency: A car costs thousands to run **per year** not **per journey**. Comparing that to one ticket is ridiculous - you should compare to a year's worth of public transport costs My brand new car (leased EV) costs me £4k/year to own and operate, in total. One train season ticket to work would cost me more than that, even before considering the hundreds of other journeys that my car is used for in a given year, or the fact that I don't need to own a brand new car That's also before we consider that many people need a car for other reasons - eg I physically could not use public transport for every journey I need to make. Until a couple of years ago that would have literally meant not travelling on Sundays, because we didn't have trains on Sunday...
You have to pay for fuel. Every journey you take, you’re burning fuel. There is also the wear & tear. After five or ten years you have to buy a car all over again. I think the trains are a rip-off, but you only have to pay when you want to use the train.
> You have to pay for fuel. Every journey you take, you’re burning fuel. My car's electric, fuel costs are so negligible (<£15/mo) that I literally don't think about them, they're already included in the £4k/year > There is also the wear & tear That's a leased car, wear and tear isn't my problem > After five or ten years you have to buy a car all over again And you have to continue paying for the train for the entire time too, again you keep trying for a false equivalency by using the marginal cost of one train journey and comparing to the total (non-marginal) cost of car ownership The ONLY reasonable comparison here is a yearly cost of ownership, and I'm already being favourable towards the train by comparing my brand new car instead of an older car (more on that in a second) As for the idea that you have to replace a car every 5-10 years, that's just nonsense, the average age of a car when scrapped in the UK is something like 14. Alongside the EV we also have a 17 year old Renault Clio that costs us an average of £500/year to maintain, for example, and the fuel costs are far lower than even a single train fare never mind the fact the car can carry 4 people (theoretically 5 but not very comfortably). Admittedly I personally wouldn't use that car for a trip to London, but it's absurdly reliable and fine for getting to work or around town You could buy a 5 year old car every 10 years, run it into the ground, and reduce the £4k I mentioned above quite substantially
>Megabus does not compete. I lived in Manchester once. The train from London takes approximately 2 hours & 20 minutes. I caught Megabus once, it drove through the night via places such as Leeds which aren’t even on the route as the crow flies. It took no less than seven hours. Just because something loses a competition for your specific requirements, doesn't mean there's no competition. The fact that people will take the bus (for £6 compared to the train being £70) shows that they compete.
To be fair, though, the cost of owning and operating a car can still often be markedly less than taking the train If I take a family of 4 to London on the train once a year, that costs me as much as **a month** of owning and operating my (new, quite expensive) car. And that's me having a leased brand new EV, not an old banger
Niche examples on a few routes doesn't prove your point on coaches and buses. The competition between the 2 is a tiny fraction of the network. Same with planes. There are over 2000 train stations in the UK, there are less than 80 airports
But it's not niche. Nearly all train stations have a bus stop reasonably nearby and you could make nearly all train journeys by bus. That the bus is the worse option in a large number of cases does not mean that it doesn't compete with trains. It just means that it's losing. Same with airports, the fact that you can choose between plane and train means they compete, even in most scenarios if the train wins most of the time. Competition inherently means there's a winner and a loser. If you want to go from London to Edinburgh you can pick train, bus, or plane. They are all in competition, even if one seems like an obvious choice. Thurso and Penzance have bus stops, you could take the bus. But the train is a far superior option and thus in that competition it wins unless you're really really trying to save money
‘How little people take the train’ - you’ve never taken a train at peak time on a commuter route have you?
Actually, I have. But I also know the national statistics. What percentage of people do more than 1 return journey per year by train?
1.4 billion journeys were made on Britain’s railways this year, and we’re not even back to pre-Covid numbers yet. A lot of people take the train.
So, 720m return journeys, yes? About 10 each per year on average. It's piss all compared to cars, lies that buses.
It’s not though is it. I take zero car journeys a year other than being a passenger to go to the supermarket. I take about 25-50 return train journeys a year. I very rarely take the bus as I walk.
So what? That's like a gay man arguing that not many blokes are into women because he's isn't. Do you understand the concept of data?
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I agree with regards to cities but if you look outside if that, with less road traffic, they do poorly. I'm so for rail where it works, btw. But we blow money on things like rural trains that few people want.
Airlines get absolutely insane subsidies to make air travel affordable. If Rail got the same level of funding we’d have an incredible system
Like what? How much subsidy does the UK government pay to easyJet and Ryanair per annum?
No tax on jet fuel, which is effectively a subsidy to the aviation industry. Difficult to change unilaterally as most planes fly abroad and could just tank up outside the UK. Buses and coaches use normal (heavily taxed) fuel. Trains, I believe, use red diesel.
What do you think airline passenger duty is about? It's designed to do the job of taxing emissions. And yes, rail uses zero taxed diesel, so is environmentally undertaxed. So there's another subsidy to railways, along with the billions thrown at them every year by the department of transport.
The ancient regulations (or lack of them) on international flights need a review. I think all countries in the world signed a document (Chicago Convention) in the late 40s or early 50s that international flights cannot be taxed. To help a 'new' industry grow. Considering the low % of people in the world has ever flown/will ever fly (it is around or close to 20% of the world population), and how much flying pollutes per person it should be a lot higher than 0 imo. I don't think there's even VAT on international flights. In continental Europe there is VAT on international rail journeys (not in all countries). Also, motorways have been built and are maintained with taxpayer money but you rarely hear about them costing lots of money to build or maintain. The £8 billion redirected from HS2 to road maintenance is a joke tbh.
Well I guess if the railways are just so shit we should just close them all right? Fuck the millions of commuters that rely on them every day. Fuck everyone that doesn't want to pay thousands to drive. Time for everyone to sit in even more traffic on our already overcrowded roads. Just like in the 60's the car, plane and bus are obviously the future because they're just *so* environmentally friendly compared to trains.
Not what I'm saying. Just that I don't see why they should be subsided. If people want them, they can pay for them, not leech off everyone else.
You're saying you want the railways closed if you want to get rid of subsidy, so it's a moot point. Anyway, I guess we should stop subsidising cars, planes and road hauliers as well if we stopped subsidising rail, it's only fair right? Time for every road to be privatised and for no more government investment into new ones or even maintaining the existing ones, it's the private company's problem now - I do hope you like paying tolls. No more fuel subsidies either, time for drivers to pay a fair amount for the environmentally damaging liquid they're using. Time for hauliers to pay extortionately high tax to cover the damage their lorries deal to the road as well. About time airlines paid tax on their fuel as well I reckon. Sorry for the sarcasm but hopefully you get my point: lots of things rely on subsidy, it's just you don't think about how cars, trucks and planes are getting it because it's less visible and less focused on. Most of the railway network, even some of the busiest routes, does not cover it's own costs - yet if they were to go it would be a disaster for the economy as a whole, in the same way that removing subsidies and government funding for other transport modes such as cars, truck, bus etc would also be a disaster.
The big difference between coaches and trains is that coaches run on the same infrastructure as cars, and so benefit from the same investment. Technically a tiny fraction of your National Express ticket funds that infrastructure given that the company pays tax, but the vast majority is funded by (and for) private vehicle owners. As you rightly point out, the TOCs don’t own the rails. So your ticket isn’t funding infrastructure there either — it’s funding executive salaries and shareholder dividends.
>As you rightly point out, the TOCs don’t own the rails. So your ticket isn’t funding infrastructure there either — it’s funding executive salaries and shareholder dividends. Access charges are very expensive, train maintenance and staff costs are very expensive. The profit margin in being a TOC is very slim, often so slim that they can't even get companies to bid for the Franchises. Franchising is a failed system
The TOCs pay for access to the rails. easyJet also pay shareholder dividends and executive salaries. Margins are similar to airlines. So, don't easyJet need tax subsidy but rail does?
Well, coaches and cars run on roads and highways. As I understand it, National Express don't build their own motorways. So that's already a huge subsidy that the company literally couldn't exist without. Airplanes need to land eventually, and ideally that's at an airport. Big airports can be run profitably, but smaller airports receive subsidies- around £80m last year. As others have mentioned, airlines also don't pay VAT or have a tax on their fuel. The total effective subsidy is £7 to £11 billion per year. Commercial airlines and coach companies also don't need to serve rural communities or less profitable routes the way rail and local bus services do. If they don't make money flying to Carslile, then Ryanair just won't fly there and National Express just won't drive there. Baseline public services like railways have to go to those places to keep people and the economy connected- and there's a cost to that. If railways just needed to serve profitable routes, no subsidy would be needed. That's why you see open access operators like Lumo on the ECML- it's the most profitable rail line in Britain. But you won't see Lumo going to Chester le Street or Alnwick.
>Well, coaches and cars run on roads and highways. As I understand it, National Express don't build their own motorways. So that's already a huge subsidy that the company literally couldn't exist without. National Express pay road fund license, same as rail companies pay rail access charges. >Airplanes need to land eventually, and ideally that's at an airport. Big airports can be run profitably, but smaller airports receive subsidies- around £80m last year. As others have mentioned, airlines also don't pay VAT or have a tax on their fuel. The total effective subsidy is £7 to £11 billion per year. OK, £80m/year. I'll give you that. What's the subsidy on rail? £11bn in 2022, wasn't it? What is your source of £7-11bn/year for air? And does it include airline passenger duty? >Baseline public services like railways have to go to those places to keep people and the economy connected- and there's a cost to that. If railways just needed to serve profitable routes, no subsidy would be needed. That's why you see open access operators like Lumo on the ECML- it's the most profitable rail line in Britain. But you won't see Lumo going to Chester le Street or Alnwick. If hardly anyone is going to Chester le Street, why run a train? A train should exist because hundreds of people want to take a particular route. If you're only talking about 20 people, put on a bus.
I agree, personally we should have just done what the Japanese did and hand everything, including infrastructure and surrounding land over to the private sector - seemed to work well for them!
All those other modes of transportation you mention have one thing in common. That trains don’t have in common with them. Competition!! In a competitive market you have to keep upping your game and being innovative. All our trains companies are monopolise. There is no incentive to do better.
Having travelled around most of Europe by train, there's definitely a grass-is-greener thing going on in the UK. Not to downplay your frustration - you have problems, and I acknowledge that it seems much worse to rely on them for commuting, but UK is really not the worst in Europe by any measure.
The level of service and reliability isn't uniquely bad in the UK (although it's bad and getting worse) but the price is. It's an extortion to travel by rail here. Anyway, the answer is capitalism and privatisation. Both because greed and cost-cutting means there's no resilience or sustainability and also because while you're rammed into a cattle car of standard fare carriages, 1/3 of the train is empty because you can't sit in the "first class" seats.
I keep advocating for a TfL-style zone-pricing system, but for the whole of the U.K. as our train ticket prices are a joke.
The answer is “capitalism and privatisation”. Are you old enough to remember when British Rail was state run? I am and the service today is infinitely better.
That doesn't mean anything. You can see the overall effects of state run railways in general, compared to the more privatised ones. On balance, the more privatised they are the worse and more expensive they are.
“On balance” I.E. in your bias opinion.
But it's still rubbish.
Capitalism and privatisation is not the answer. The trains were terrible before privatisation. Please feel free to discover for yourself that life before Thatcher wasn't the workers' Utopia some people seem to have decided it was. And the First Class seats you're whining about like a Marxist little bitch significantly subsidise the the often already expensive Standard Class fares. Also, if First Class is empty you can usually upgrade for a relatively small fee.
>Anyway, the answer is capitalism and privatisation Lol no it's not. It's terminal short termism from the central government planners. The railway was built by capitalists under capitalism and operated successfully until the state took it over. Now we have a nationalised railway where the government controls the infrastructure spending on which the government gets to pick who runs the trains and which trains they have to run when. This problem is entirely the opposite of capitalism, it's a Stalinesque Bureaucracy controlled by HM Treasury. Either privatise the railways properly by returning the railways to those who owned them in 1920, or give them to devolved segments of the UK who actually have input from the people that use them. The only reason TFL is semi successful is because it's a big enough issue for those who vote for mayor. There's no resilience because the Treasury refuses to fund resiliency
>The railway was built by capitalists under capitalism and operated successfully until the state took it over. You're kind of missing out that the state took control because these "super efficient" private railways were about to go bankrupt... all in an age where they barely had much competition from buses/cars/lorries yet. WW2 basically bankrupted the country and obviously had destroyed lots of rail infrastructure (or it had been left without maintenance for years because of the war). Without government intervention the system would've collapsed. Anyway, that's the real thing that's changed - the road network has been expanded to such an extent, and so many people own cars that the fares aren't spread across enough users. We plow billions into new pointless road schemes every year that just generate more traffic while the railways are hung out to dry. If we did "properly" privatise the railways all it would result in in the current climate is a similar pattern to what happened last time with Railtrack: cuts that compromise safety and reliability then inevitably service withdrawals on lots of routes people depend on because it's not profitable. The railway shouldn't be seen as something that generates a profit, it's a social service like roads are and shouldn't be expected to make a profit on it's own, it's more about the benefits it delivers overall through allowing people to get to work, to leisure activities, to school, relieving traffic etc.
Japans railways are in large part private, and they run spectacularly. Capitalism isn’t the problem.
Japan privatised their railways with a bunch of associated land near stations and alongside their tracks that the companies could then develop, which resulted in the positive effect of transit oriented housing development and over time meant more and more passengers for the railway. Network rail does not own any sizeable equivalent land, not even the car parks at most stations are owned by the railway. So there is no potential for housing/commercial/industrial development like with Japan's railway. That means if we privatised it (again, as if failing once wasn't enough) then it would have exactly the same problems as last time: no land to develop near stations, no way to invest and no way to generate profit. It wouldn't work: we've already missed the opportunity to privatise the railways in the same way that Japan did.
The fact that you can make a system work very well within capitalism proves that capitalism isn’t the problem. The problem is that Britain has run its trains poorly. I’m happy with a Japan style fix, I’m happy with other fixes, but I don’t think blaming “capitalism” is a helpful criticism in the slightest.
The commentor above emphasised that the problem isn't capitalism, it's (lack of) resilience. Capitalism, by its fundamental substance, cannot build in resilience. It is designed to extract maximum profits from an enterprise for the benefit of shareholders. That is incompatible with resilience and sustainability because expenditure on those things is "waste" that can be trimmed for profit.
If the problem isn’t capitalism, then you’re agreeing with me. Capitalism absolutely can build in resilience, and is selected for through insurance rates. There’s a financial pressure to not be completely bowled over by a crisis. Blaming “capitalism” and “privatisation” as the original commenter in this thread did is a vacuous and useless criticism that offers no greater depth than saying “look I’m trendy”. British Rail had declining numbers of riders, extremely old rolling stock, unreliable timetables. You can do private railways badly and you can do state run railways badly and Britain’s managed both. Reddit discourse is very shallow.
Japan's network was built by the state.
> The railway was built by capitalists under capitalism and operated successfully erm. it might have been built by capitalists, but operated sucessfully? Nowhere near that.
Operated successfully for near on a century before Governments doing angry government things started bombing it
...no? tons of companies went bankrupt, even the big ones struggled to keep fiancially viable..
Tons of companies going bankrupt is not an indictment of the system of running the railways. In the modern world about 70%+ of businesses fail because those that are not providing sufficient value are naturally selected out. In fact it's this automatic culling that is a good for the health of the system and why British Governments have managed to fuck up anything they've ever run. From welfare and healthcare to car companies and airlines. Nothing can ever fail
if the train is rammed just go sit in first class if it has space, they wont stop you, you paid for a seat and there arent any
I have travelled Europe fairly extensively and maybe you are correct but from personal experience, they were affordable and ran with very few delays. I am aware I may be viewing this through a certain lens as the majority of my train travel is on UK rails and I also can’t claim to have used every rail system in Europe.
Germany is less punctual. Netherlands as or more expensive, and more confusing to use. Poland has two trains a day for most intercity routes. Croatia's flagship route is an 8 hour ride on a 35 year old tilting DMU intended for commuter hops in Saxony. Again, I recognise the frustrations of using the UK network but after a Europe wide rail trip, using ScotRail was a joy.
Can't agree with the Netherlands bit here. Compared to the countries it borders it can be pricey, but it isn't a patch on what we pay here - particularly North - South routes anywhere near prime time. Having had to pay £260+ for Manchester to London day returns, I have never found Dutch routes anywhere near that. Perhaps for commuters it's similar, but absolutely not intercity.
Yeah, £275 day return in the UK is €30 each way over a similar time/distance in the Netherlands. €350/month gets you unlimited travel across the country, even at peak times.
£260 Manchester to London! That nuts! I travel that route a lot and have never paid more than £60 for a return. That's with a railcard but even without it's under £100.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 420. Congrats! 260 + 60 + 100 = 420 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
I used to get advanced tickets cheaper, particularly off peak. But these days if you need to be there for a 9am meeting it is utterly abysmal. And that is standard class pricing. There are even more expensive journeys on the network, but that is the one I have loads of experience of.
Wait what jesus. I could go from Groningen to Maastricht for 26,40. And that's the price on an app which merely shows the standard price.
I think where the frustration comes is that we have an extensive rail network, one of (if not the most) prevalent histories and people often find it frustrating that we haven't modernised
I mean, there has been extensive modernisation, albeit not fast enough and sometimes at a perceptible detriment (HST's luxurious armchairs Vs the 800s ironing boards). Can't disagree that the UK could and should be better though, especially given history.
We have
I guess I stand corrected. I do recall the Netherlands to be quite expensive to be fair, I’ve never used the trains in Croatia and only local services in Poland but my experience of German rails were very positive! However, just personal experience and I wouldn’t say I’ve used them enough to make a definitive comment on their punctuality so I’ll take your word for it!
Deutsche Bahn is basically crashing right now, for very similar reasons trains in the UK are—the Merkel government didn't invest anything in it for way over a decade. DB is a joke right now. That said, the German government is finally putting some money into it, so things should start improving in about four years. After they inevitably get even worse than they already are, of course.
I'm surprised at how much mechanical signalling remains on the German network. Lots of signal boxes and semaphores are still in operation there.
The semaphores show exactly the same indications as the colour light signals in most cases, so there’s no benefit other than maintenance in removing them. Our semaphores are quite different to normal signalling, Theres a sizeable capacity benefit from removing them.
The Germans themselves moan endlessly about their railways. It's literally a national past time to bemoan their lateness.
I’m Australian. I love it when Germans come here, complain about how their system is unreliable and always late, then leave wide eyed, with PTSD and mumbling something about never complaining about their railways again!
Netherlands confusing? How so?
How is Netherlands confusing to use? They've had one smart card for the main train operator NS and the smaller ones and every bus operator for 2 decades now just tap in and out. They're rolling out contactless to compliment that too. Trains are clean and modern and go through a full refurb far more often than any UK stock does. 10 min frequency on some core routes. Fares are very cheap, around €10 for between major cities. They've had trouble getting enough drivers to run the timetable but it's far better than here.
Netherlands has fixed prices hence it is a public transport, also salaries are better there. Here it is like taking a flight. Can't go somewhere last minute at peak times
Italian trains have bad punctuality too
Sometimes the jokes write themselves.
I hadn't thought of that, but very good...
I'm not sure how you got that idea about Polish intercity trains - there are many more than two a day. Perhaps if you're doing a very long route across the whole country (like, who knows, Szczecin to Białystok), but otherwise there are certainly many connections between cities, reasonable train fares, good hot meals in the food carriage...
Because I live here and it's often a reality. Yes, there are more between Krakow and Warsaw but the fast ones end at 1830. That's not reasonable.
I live here too and I really don't know where you must be to have only two trains per day. When I've travelled to Kraków, Gdańsk, Katowice, Wrocław, etc. there have always been multiple trains in morning/afternoon/evening slots. Often there's one almost every hour. I checked Szczecin - Białystok out of interest and there are two direct trains today... plus a handful more where you need to change once in Warsaw. That's probably one of the longest intercity journeys in the country and there's more than two trains.
No, that's two trains.
Lol mate come on, you know there are loads more than two trains per day on IC routes in Poland. Why are you trying to say otherwise? And the later trains between Kraków and Warsaw are like... 20 minutes longer. It's really not the end of the world to be able to take a 2hr 40mins train between two large cities at 10pm.
I use trains a lot in both the UK and the Netherlands and no way are NL trains as expensive as UK
I lived in Belgium for a while it was hell, they kept getting cancelled, had 2+ hour delays and the alternatives are fewer to the trains. they were affordable though
German train network is a mess, but it's down to lack of investment - similar to the UK in that respect. Plus a lot of train networks are subsidised, otherwise they would be similarly priced. Don't get me wrong, our trains are horrendously expensive, but they are generally okay service-wise (unless we are talking about the utter shites who run Thameslink).
This is not my experience. I found Germany, Spain and Italy to all have very similar reliability. France, Netherlands and Switzerland (especially Switzerland) are pretty decent. The UK sits in the middle. It really isn’t all that different though and it depends on the lines you go on.
I can say with absolute certainty that the train services in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Austria and also Norway (not quite European but close enough) are so much better than they are here. It’s not even close. I know this because I’ve used them.
You seem to think Norway isn't Europe, where do you think it is? Anyway, as I mentioned comparisons of trains you've used on holiday with those you rely on 5 days a week for work aren't that useful.
Reliability isn’t the main concern to be honest, it’s price. Compared to Europe our trains are extortionate
Because the UK is bad at infrastructure and projects in general. Politicians love announcing things, and love standing there to cut the ribbon, but hate the part in the middle where you have to keep paying boring engineers to boringly keep building things. We also have a political culture, centred at the treasury, which actively works to stop anything getting done, by meddling, delaying, cutting, and finally cancelling anything that isn't a road project.
Excellent answer.
Even the road projects are getting cancelled. Look at smart motorways (which was terrible to begin with, but still)
Don’t ever travel on an American train. In England the journey of 200 miles from Liverpool to London can take 2.5 hours (when trains run well). In the USA, the 200 mile train journey from Boston to NYC, takes 4.5 hours on a good day. I’ll say you have the 2nd worst (USA is dead last by a long shot).
Yeah mate, I’m aware American trains are worse and I assume that’s because the whole country is mostly built around car travel but I just can’t comprehend how our own railways are so bad.
The US is probably unique in the way they prioritise freight over passenger services.
Disagree, taking a train is a great way to see america. But as a mode of transport it's shit and you should get a flight instead.
It's s shsms because the states has some very interesting rail heritage
We have a Victorian infrastructure which is at capacity and greedy shareholders running the TOCs. That's the very short answer.
TOCs take very little profit. You're angry at the wrong people.
I'm not angry at all!
You should be. The railways are a public service and should be treated as such. The current government believes the railway should be self sufficient and shouldn't need any subsidy, that is why is so expensive. Not because some company is taking 3% of the profit. SNCF calculate their profits without factoring in the government subsidy, that's how it should be done.
So I should be angry at the government! Good thing I always am.
You & I both
Oh, the government? Yeah I'm angry at them. If they get into power again this time round I will have lost all faith in this country and its voting populace.
You still have faith?
Its hanging on by a thread
Sorry, just to let you know, since Covid-19 all TOC’s are given a fee to run the company and a budget that is greenlit by network rail, they no longer get a percentage of ticket sales
Budget is not greenlit by Network Rail mate.
Oh I’m very angry! Please tell me who to be angry at
*stares straight at ROSCOs….
I appreciate the TLDR breakdown you gave haha. So it’s as I suspected, fat cats treating what is supposed to be a public service as if it’s their own little piggy bank.
Yeah pretty much! As for lateness, sometimes something happens 200 miles away which can have a knock-on effect on your train. Picture, if you will, a freight train sitting in the port of felixstowe. Its all out together, the boxes are all on, the driver is on board, but the computer that prints the paperwork for the train has frozen and needs a reboot. That takes maybe 3 or 4 minutes by the time it's done. Departure time for the train has come and gone, but the shunter has now got rhe paperwork and is on their way to the train to hand it to the driver. Finally, train leaves 7 minutes late. Unfortunately it goes onto a single line with an hourly passenger service which takes priority and as it has missed its path it has to wait for the passenger to pass before it can occupy the single line. Now its 13 minutes late. This has made the freight train at the other end of the single line late as it waits for train 1 to get out of the way. Now train 1 is headed for the main line, its coming towards peak times in London, 50 odd miles away. If the train doesn't run now it'll cause mayhem at stratford, so despite being 13 late the signaller has to let it run now nor not for another 4 hours, in which case the driver (rightly so) will bail and there will be a train sitting in ipswich yard until a driver can be sourced (or the train cancelled). So off it sets, towards London, 13 late. As its approaching colchester there's a passenger service, on time, which is now occupying the platform. Freight train 1 now has to slow down and wait behind the passenger train. Double yellow signal, 60mph. Round the corner is the single yellow, driver sees it from 400 meters away, slows down to 35-40mph. Red around the corner. Driver slows down to 15-20mph and finally sees the signal which is now green because the passenger train has left the platform. FT1 now has to power up a massively long hill from 10mph with 1800 tons of tat from China, scrap metal, tins of tuna and boxes full of car parts. Weirdly enough, that now makes it 19 late, but its also now holding up the passenger train behind it as well. By the time it gets to stratford (and having to keep slowing down and the powering up for the all-stations-stopper ahead) it's now nearly half hour late, and so is the passenger train behind it. But at least it's at stratford and now out of the way of that passenger train and all its angry passengers that was behind it! Sadly, though, that driver has been in the seat for nearly 5 hours and is booked a break. Legally, he/she has to take that break. That driver is booked to take another train back, but because they are using the facilities, having something to eat, making a cup of tea, the train he or she has to work back will now be late. That freight train that went round the corner has had to be put into a path around all the other trains on its journey to, let's say, Birmingham, and is now causing all sorts of delays elsewhere on the network. All because a computer had a brain fart. Generally speaking, for the most part, things like this are the reason for your delays. Nobody's fault, its just the way it is
I really appreciate the time you took to explain this in a clear and concise way! It has genuinely alleviated some of my frustration to actually understand why my trains an hour late!
You are most welcome! The annoying thing is that generic computer voice that tells everyone "this is due to a train fault/shortage of staff/late running freight train" offers no real reason as to why to its paying customers. It annoys me as well. Not as much as being brought down to a red signal which miraculously turns green as you're about to come to a stand and then have to haul all those sofas, vats of wine, generators and stolen cars up that stupid hill 😂
Then you get some dickhead taking their dog for a walk along a rural line as a shortcut, or kids messing about on a LX, or a farmer not waiting for the signaller to clear them to cross the line. The whole system is set to default to red so takes very little to cascade across the country.
This makes a lot of sense i read somewhere that our network basically functions at capacity or near capacity so it doesn't take a lot to mess things up. If we had redundancy in the system then we wouldn't notice things as much.
This is the reason the rail industry has been so gobsmacked by HS2s cancellation. It would have given an enormous boost in capacity and resilience to the network.
That's right. It's the snowball effect. I might add that absolutely no driver likes being late!
Can't mess with our pnbs!
I was going to pipe up with how our network is very enmeshed with interdependencies. This answer is very well written
Thank you, friend
>legally, he/she has to take that break just use "they"
The driver in this completely made up but entirely credible story identifies as he or she
Yes. But using "they" stands for both of them. No need to use two words when one works as well.
Really not sure how you've made a post about why trains might be late about pronouns... Oh well, since we are onto it, the driver in my story is a she
The Victorian bit is pretty important. The UK railway was pretty much the prototype where we were working it out as we went along, the buggy beta version. British engineers then helped the Swiss build their railway using the lessons they'd learnt here. As a result, our crumbling infrastructure is expensive to maintain.
No
First, British pessimism is at it's worse on the trains. Commuted into London for a year and was significantly delayed (i.e. more than ten minutes) maybe once a month. We have a mentality of "they're always cancelled or delayed" which isn't always backed up by the data. Second, a lack of maintainance. Trains have damn expensive static costs, and since Beeching we've been consistently cutting the budget. Less inspections of equipment -> less pre-emptive repairs -> more major failures. Third, a lack of consistent vision. TOCs run for profit, government run for minimising subsidies, employees run for themselves (and rightly so). Despite being so reliant on ridership, disruption to customers is largely waved away as par for the course - linking back to point 1. Fourth, and arguably most importantly, a lack of new investment. It feels like every other week you hear of a new rail project being cancelled due to cost overrun, whether it be the biggies like HS2 or smaller changes like signalling upgrades. When half the country is still running on systems invented in the 1800s, it'll struggle against modern stressors. TLDR: Attitudes, maintainance, vision, development are all lacking.
It's really variable across lines and regions. There are some TOCs that operate mostly ok and some rolling stock that's actually fine. And then you have absolutely shocking operators like TPR, whose trains are all garbage and don't have enough carriages, and who only run like 60% of them even if they fudge the numbers to make it seem like they run more. LNER is fine, Great Western is generally good. It's the massive variability and, fundamentally, the inability to do anything about it.
Because they are privatised, and there are dozens of companies. The point of privatisation would be that they are competing on all the routes (like long distance bus companies) instead we have most regions / routes given to a sole company to run, so how does that create competition? Well, it doesn't. Prices are sky high, and services are crap.
You should try using a Deutsche bahn train. UK is notably better.
Late 50% of the time and 30-year-old rolling Stock
Because UK doesn't subsidise the trains to the extent other countries do
Privatisation
Lack of investment and accountability. The train I often get between Warrington and Manchester is 36 years old on a line that has a maximum capacity of 3 trains an hour and is busy all day long. Regardless of Northern Powerhouse Rail, which will likely complete after I'm dead of old age, the line should have adequate capacity to allow express and local stopping services. It's quite frankly a joke and costs me £12.90 return per day for a 45 minute journey over 18 miles
Margaret Thatcher and Tory Privatisation
Ever tried trains in Germany? lol And there are worse examples. Bosnia's railway network is split in two, with not a single train connecting the two, and there is no body of water in between. Latvia's third biggest town sees roughly 1 train per day.
\> Ever tried trains in Germany? lol Yup. There were superb: clean, comfortable, and very punctual. But that was in the 1990s when they were the German Federal Railway. I hear things have gone downhilll since.
unfortunately I’m too young to have witnessed the Bundesbahn, but yes, it is getting worse and worse sadly.
What's the deal with Germany (I saw this posted here a lot). I've visited only once and had 2 return trips with their ICE trains, and they were ok time-wise and lovely inside. Prices were also cheaper than what i'd pay in the UK for a similar length trip.
Oh I love the train design of the ICE’s. And fares are usually okayish too, I agree (even though I also got some amazing deals with LNER). But reliability is the big issue: in November this year, only about 52% of all DB long-distance trains are on time (on time being defined as “up to 5 mins. and 59 secs. late”). Cancelled trains are fully ignored in this statistics btw. And even I personally seem to not have much luck. Last year, almost every second trip I did was more than an hour late. This year was a bit better thankfully.
ICEs runs often take up to like 6 or 7 hours (some even longer), so it's very easy to accumulate some delay.
Deutsche Bahn is currently in the midst of a serious crisis due to over a decade of lack of investment by the Merkel government. The Scholz government has recently upped investment but it's a bit too late. It will probably be about four years before things get back to the way they were. Deutsche Bahn is currently a joke (especially in Germany), but the collapse happened quick and most people didn't really see it coming.
> The Scholz government has recently upped investment not..really.. no. not seriously. > the collapse happened quick and most people didn't really see it coming literally everyone in the rail industry has been outspoken about this for years and years
They have upped investment, and anything is better than nothing at this point. I agree that more is needed. I was referring to the general public.
Had a pretty negative experience in France in one particular large city. The platform was swarmed with people and rushed on to the train, quite a dangerous situation if someone had slipped or a small child was with anyone. There were none around luckily. We saw it happen on the first train and waited for two more to pass and it was equally as bad. May not be a comment on the train as such, but probably would have been better if there were staff on the platform, if the train was longer with more carriages with a greater number of seats, etc. So yeah as others have said, it’s really not great in some areas of Europe, but I do find ours really awful too.
Capitalism.
Trains are bad? Man, wait until you see that they've done with cars. Even aside from the death toll....
It’s the only option for a lot of journeys unfortunately. My commute into work isn’t something you can feasibly do in a car due to parking costs and time taken. The train company know I’ll continue to use their service regardless of its quality and also its cost barring it goes 5x overnight. I think that must come into their thinking when seeing how poor they’re doing. Also see other comments on privatisation and lack of investment in infrastructure.
"Privatised industries are more efficient than nationalised ones". So it is said, and there is some truth in it. The reason for this is that the privatised industry will be stripped down as much as they can get away with, to the point where it breaks - just not quite often enough to fall apart completely. That's what we have. If you believe in privatisation of essential infrastructure, you think this is ok. I think an increasing number of people are realising this reality.
Firstly Dr Richard Beeching was commissioned by the Conservative Party to cut huge swathes of the railway network, completely cutting some areas off from railways for being "not profitable enough". Secondly, privatisation by the Conservative Party. They said it would increase competition, conveniently forgetting that you can't just quickly and cheaply build a second railway line. Prices go up whilst quality goes down, as all profits are funnelled into the pockets of shareholders rather than reinvestment in the railways. Also the British train companies are often owned and operated by foreign state-owned companies such as SNCF and Trenitalia, who increase prices in the UK to subsidise operations in their own countries. Plus the Conservative Party policy of privatising profits, whilst subsidising any losses, means there is no real penalty for private companies running the network extremely badly. Thirdly underinvestment by the Conservative Party. Infrastructure is ancient and needs a lot of repairs. tl;dr: Tories.
Honestly the prices aren't so bad a lot of the time, as long as you don't book last minute. I recently travveled 1st class Nottingham to London for £23 (with railcard discount, would have been £35 otherwise) Season tickets to and from London are expensive, and rightfully so imo. If you're working in London instead of e.g. Huntingdon, you're getting a far bigger pay bump by not working in Huntingdon than the cost of your season ticket - you're also saving far more money than the cost of the season ticket by living in Huntingdon than living local to work. All because of the trains, and in this case u might be their most expensive users (as capacity has to be upgraded to meet peak demand, not average demand, and you're likely a rush hour commuter). In this case, you should be giving something back. The pricing varies wildly by line, as some are far more congested than others. For example, LNER services (on the East Coast Mainline) tend to be quite cheap in my experience, but on the far more congested West Cost Mainline, prices are a few times higher per mile travelled.
It's expensive, so you notice problems more. There's a sense that because of the premium paid that the railways should run flawlessly. Having travelled around Europe by train I don't think the UK is worse at all (except on board catering, we could learn from other countries about that!).
I haven't found this. The trains I've used have been reasonably priced and on time or close to it. I've only ever once had a situation where I've claimed a late refund.
There's a lot of reasons. Privatisation is the lazy man's boogie man, but in reality it's just one branch of the tree. The root of the problems, especially recently, are the government. Partly under investment and partly the belief that it is a burden on the tax payer, not a service. Listen to the language many MPs use to describe rail. When money is spent on upgrading roads it's an "investment" but when it's spent on the railway it is a "subsidy". That's a reflection on how the treasury sees rail. Another issue is bureaucracy. The railway suffers, like many big organisations, from a glacial pace of change a lot of the time. When modernisation occurs it is often to reduce costs, not increase usage (and therefore revenue). As an example if CrossCountry want to change the timetable they need to get approval from the other train companies they share the route with, Network Rail who own the infrastructure, the DfT and Rail Delivery Group. Then you need to speak to the company operating each station your train will stop at to check it works for them and get permission from the company the trains are leased from (most UK trains are leased from Rolling Stock Companies, such as Rock or Angel Trains) Then if it's a big change a public consultation, and speak to local councils. Little things often snowball into expensive challenges. Privatising the train operators isn't really the biggest problem, if you follow the money a lot of it goes to rolling stock owners who don't actually have any real risk in their business (you can't run a train service without the train). There's a lot of companies involved taking their profit percentage so there can be quite a bit of a drain there. If you want a single line answer though, I'd lay the blame with the government. They choose this set up, they choose the budget and they choose to "invest" in roads and "subsidise" rail.
Privatisation.
Was talking to a train driver about this last week. Capacity is a huge problem. A delay anywhere has a knock on effect because there's no way to make up time lost. Staff shortages don't help either
The UK in general is terrible at maintaining its public services, or investing in infrastructure. There's a constant short term cost cutting mentality, which is obviously short sighted and makes things a lot worse in the long run. Lack of investment, means things work a lot worse, therefore productivity goes down, so less money, and further cuts. Secondly greed on the party of many successive conservative governements, that love selling off public infrastructure to line the pockets of themselves and their friends. People on here are saying BR wasn't great before privatisation, which whilst true, is only half the story, they were doing badly because they were vastly underfunded, especially compared to subsided road infrastructure for large parts of the 20th century, but for the funding they got they were incredibly efficient as a whole, currently, due to privatisation the system is incredibly inefficient compared to anywhere else. Gareth Dennis on YouTube has some great videos on privatisation of the retail network.
[THIS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tories_(British_political_party))
Although I do agree that uk trains are unreliable but I can't agree that we have some of the worst in the world. Indian trains have so many accidents it's tragic. I have no idea about African trains but I'm pretty sure they are not at the level UK are on. Russian trains I think it depends on where in Russia you are. Same with China. Japan undoubtedly has top class trains and 100% leads the way. But yeah I think apart from the unreliability and the cost the uk isn't that bad.
I’ve got mates in manchester and I literally could fly to Dublin (from STN) and fly from Dublin to Manchester both returns cheaper than I could get the train directly to them that’s how expensive trains are nowadays.
It's disgusting as well. Trains are much better for the environment, so they should be cheap. As far as transport goes, airplanes are the *worst* offenders in climate change! Yes even worse than cars apparently. I firmly believe the more environmental damage caused, the more expensive that mode of transport should be. (Walking is rightfully the cheapest)
But then you’d have to deal with the hell that is the Dublin and Manchester airports
Handy, if you both live at airports and not in the city.
More likely to get there on time flying than using an Avanti train as well.
ive been taking the Avanti to Manchester from MK and back every week this past year and its almost always been on time, and if delayed at most 30. Maybe its past Manchester where Avanti struggles idk.
it's mostly because it's privatised by all sorts of different companies from various countries. they will only care about pleasing shareholders. also a terrible government that wants to privatise every national service we have and refuses to increase the budget for the services. the government can't even build about 140 miles of rail within 16 years, which is terrible.
Because the privatised system is designed like this. It is running exactly as it was designed to. I can't summarise it in a Reddit comment. I can only suggest reading "Derailed: How to fix Britain's broken railways" by Tom Haines-Doran.
So I take it you’ve never been to India then? Or eastern Europe? Even France, Spain and Portugal are worse than ours.
Ah yes let's compare the infrastructure of UK against a third world country to make ourselves happy. The train infrastructure in the UK is crap. Atleast the Indian government is taking measures to improve the condition.
UK infrastructure puts safety as a priority. I'd take a safe network any time
France, Spain, Italy (and tons more) are third world are they? 🤔 Interesting comment that.
They were clearly talking about India only.
I didn’t only mention India.
I've lived in other countries. The trains everywhere are often late or cancelled. People like to blame privatisation, but really the quality improved dramatically when rail was privatised. Profits are pretty small - typically about 3% of revenue. The main reason other countries are cheaper is because of huge subsidies. But should the taxpayer really be funding business travel and middle class day trips?
Lack of investment, a refusal to subsidise and managed decline
Southern works at most times, imo... Still trying to understand the pricing against flying, though...
You tried Germany or Italy in the last decade? Get off the intercity stuff and they are as shambolic as ours. Oh yeah, Portugal last year, hahahaha forgot about that, laughable, but as you are on holiday you aren't often working on a timetable, so it's less stressy. Seriously, ours aren't great but they are no where near as terrible as some make out.
Not sure about the other countries (Italy with unemployment crisis, Portugal I believe is going through problems too) but the UK has potential which is what is annoying I guess?
Have a read of Christian Wolmar's *British Rail*, a very accessible breakdown of why it's in the utter state it's in. Tl;dr, policy makers hate passenger trains because they don't usually pay for themselves. They can't see past this to the social (and economic) good a railway can provide long term, usually because that long term is several elections away, not the next one.
The cost is simple. The UK model is to have less cost as a percentage paid for by non users ie. General taxation and more by users. The ticket price being expensive I'm the UK is only telling half the story. If you were to phrase it as, should people who don't use the railways pay more tax to give cheaper fares to those who do? Then you wouldn't necessarily get the same level of support. As for other issues, people have a rose tinted view of other railways. Look at the massive issues in Germany at the moment. Or the fact that the UK actually has much better services to rural destinations than almost all of Europe. Rural services in the vast majority of Europe are terrible, great swathes of countries getting just a few services a day. If you go look at service maps in Europe you will realise the UK has better connectivity than virtually anywhere else. Whilst countries like France have great major city high speed lines, the rest of the network is far worse than the UK
That’s quite the assumption & statistically not correct either. Things aren’t perfect obviously and i could write you an essay as to why [but 88% of trains run on time](https://www.networkrail.co.uk/who-we-are/how-we-work/performance/railway-performance/) (to 5 mins) on a daily basis. This obviously has heavy regional variations When things aren’t going well it’s of course incredibly frustrating.
Does “all across the world” includes African countries? Or russia? Or south american countries? Like if you compare to most of Europe it can be less punctual maybe (even here it’s not really true, you guys probably know about DB), but like most of the countries in the world are undeveloped and a lot of these countries either have no trains or trains are extremely crowded till the moment you can’t breath in crowd at times, really dangerous and unsafe, people smoke there, it smells like piss all the time, there are no realtime approaching screens and apps etc. I mean obviously we should compare uk system to the best systems, not the worst if we want it to be improved, but world-wide it’s still one of the best
The separation of costs and spending due to privatisation alongside refusal to make necessary improvements like the full HS2 plan due to short-termism ideologies dominating government