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Cheers, Steve. Many thanks for your help. I'll give that website a go. :-)
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Auch die Deutschen haben eine Webseite gebaut:
www.bahn.de
It does it for the whole of Europe, but it's the fastest way of getting train times for anywhere. Yes, you can set the language to English, I've forgotten how though.
I was actually on a train between Wales and London on Monday and it was very pleasant although, as my meeting ended early, I was denied access to the earlier train - I was even told I couldn't pay to upgrade the ticket on the train as the guard could obviously have got the money out of me.
The result was that I spent an hour around Paddington wondering when the train companies will grasp basic customer service rather than treating everything as a political issue.
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I noticed a significant decline in the quality of service after privatisation. Trains were often foul, with litter everywhere, and severe problems, such as overhead monitors giving incorrect information. I believe it has got better since but not much. The problem seems to be that the track is managed by one company, the trains by another. I heard that the original plan was for the track and trains to be sold in regional blocks, but that 'Europe' declared that illegal and forced the creation of Railtrack (or whatever it is called these days).
I gave up using trains years ago after many many problems, including getting on a train indicated by overhead monitors as going to the New Forest, but which actually went to Wales. 2 hours later I got back to my starting point to try again. When I got on I did wonder why a train from Southampton to the New Forest should have Welsh and English language signs.
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Apologies to the moderators as this is getting well OT...
The English versions are:
reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en?
and
reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/el
The latter being a text-only version that is quicker to load in and useful if you are on the move. However, this site does not currently have up-to-date engineering information - Network Rail do not yet provide data to the Europe-wide database that this service runs from.
As for not being able to use an earlier train, this would only be the case if you had booked an Advance Purchase ticket and the same sort of thing applies on airlines where you have reserved seat on a particular journey. Any other ticket would either be valid or could be excessed.
To try and pacify the moderators, one idea I had a while back was whether it would be economic and / or popular to provide a network of car-carrying trains (similar to the Euroshuttle) where you could drive up to a station, drive on to a train then leave the car and wander to a saloon car, be whizzed to the nearest unloading point to your destination and carry on your journey by car. Train alone often isn't a viable option as there is the trouble of getting to the station and from there to your final destination, made worse if you are, for example, going in holiday and need the flexibility of a car once there. Rail does, however, have potential speed and pollution benefits over longer distances so combining the two seems a sensible option. However, would anyone use it?
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Trains are expensive for the passenger and the taxpayer. I can truly not understand why anyone would take one.
I have never found any route where the train is the best option.
As a general rule, the car is cheaper and more convenient. Even for one person, never mind a family.
If the car is not available, National Express is a far off second. Cheap, slow but relatively reliable.
The train? Imagine a car which has to sit and block the road when it breaks down. What a design flaw. Imagine a car which can't change direction without a predetermined and predesigned option being part of it. What a design flaw.
As I say, widen the traintracks, tarmac them over and help solve our lack of roads...
[now I just know I'm going to get an answer to that post...]
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Gen: However a lot of European countries such as France and Germany subsidise the trains much more than we do. And French and German trains used to be very nice. Especially the TGV. I wonder whether it really does make economic sense or is this just another "Grand Projet".
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You're making the mistake of comparing two different systems. Arthur C Clarke pretty much got it right when saying that rail was not really viable for shorter journeys. However, to put this in perspective, he also points out that no sane civilisation would allow private motorcars in urban areas.
Rail is cheaper and more efficient over longer distances. The car *seems* cheaper as in the main you only look at petrol costs when comparing the two. However, in general, trains are not efficient over short distances. They can be good for getting in to urban centres but otherwise are not so well suited. To be honest, Dr Beeching did have the right idea in some ways in that many branch lines are simply not viable, but opposition and in some ways sentimentality makes it hard to pare down the network and provide a more sensible alternative.
Rail is not as unreliable as your make out - I've had very few problems over the years, certainly far less than I have had getting caught in traffic jams in the car. It's not that expensive - I spend more buying, insuring, taxing, servicing and filling up my car than I did on transport before I bought it. And your point about trains not being able to change direction is just plain stupid and shows you don't understand the basic principles of their operation.
As for putting rail behind NatEx - try telling that to my mother who did Durham to London in around 3 hours by GNER, and often does Durham to Stockport in a similar time. NatEx on both these routes is roughly twice that, and driving to London would still not be that quick and far more hassle.
And lastly - would you really want to use the roads provided by tarmacing railways? The routes are often unnecessarily convoluted (for a car) as they need to keep to gentle gradients, and also often don't serve anywhere that isn't already served by a road. However, the main factor against closing them all down is the fact that the roads would quickly become swamped with the extra cars and especially the extra freight traffic that would have to change modes.
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Rail is not as unreliable as your make out - I've had very few problems over the years,
I learnt to drive at age 35 and until then always used the train. Now I never use the train as a car is so much more convenient. The only exceptions are going into London where the train has a distinct advantage. Also when travelling a long distance (400 miles+) the train is easier.
I used to have a lot of problems when travelling by train. waiting 30 minutes for one, and then finding it full, so having to wait an hour for the next one is one such example.
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Leif:
Yes, continental trains are often better than british ones. Largely due to massive subsidisation, and longer distances. However, often they are not cheaper since the countries haven't agreed with each other the pricing well. I remember that I once was going to take a train from Rotterdam (netherlands) to Hamburg (germany). An insane cost so I went and hired a Zafira from Europcar...
SteveH42:
Thing about owning a car is that a lot of it is fixed costs. As such if you own a car the more you use it the better value you get from it. That's because your variable costs are not too high (even though petrol is expensive in tax terms). As not many of us would always use the train and never need a car we will buy a car. Once we buy a car, it will be cheaper to use it than the train since we have already incurred that fixed cost.
Dr Beeching is, I suspect, a car driver. As such he would be happy for more people to use trains (as would I). If he understands them, he's a better man than me.
As to NatEx, I prefer a longer journey overnight so I can sleep on the bus to railway which is stressful and in my experience extremely unreliable.
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The cost of rail has got out of hand (unless you really understand the ticketing system and/or can book far in advance).
A colleague and I had a short-notice meeting in Crewe a few months ago. We took the train from Euston and, because of the need to do some work on our journeys, we went first class. The cost was £432 for the two of us!!!
I guess we should have hired a stretch limo + driver....
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>I have never found any route where the train is the best >option.
From my (rural) home in Lancashire to where I sometimes work in Liverpool return.
By car: £4-£5 diesel, £5 parking for the day, plus wear and tear. Takes 50mins driving at peak time if the traffic is on your side, not unusual to take two hours, plus about five mins walking.
By train: £4.30 return at peak time, £2.90 off-peak. Takes 25 mins, plus 15 mins walk in total (home to station, station to work). Trains every fifteen minutes, last train home at 11.40pm. My wife does this trip every weekday and has been late for work once in four years, this on a line that is known in the popular mythology as "unreliable."
No brainer.
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I would broadly agree that, locally, trains can be a cheaper option than driving. Up until recently I had to attend courses at Salford Quays and to be there for 9 am meant an horrendous car journey. But for just over a tenner, I could get on the train at Chorley, step off in Manchester, then it was a quick walk down the platform to get on the Metrolink. And the price of the tram journey was included in this ticket!
It's the hassle that you have to put up with when making a long distance journey that is ludicrous - I was recently quoted four different prices for exactly the same journey. And two of them turned out to be incorrect!
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Well done steveH42,my wifes relatives did not know about the online timetable,(they havent got a computer).
At least i have generated a good debate!
As my last thoughts on the subject, my home of Ripon must be the only city in the uk without a raillink.
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As my last thoughts on the subject, my home of Ripon must be the only city in the uk without a raillink.
There have been many debates on this on uk.railway. I can't now recall if Ripon or Corby is the largest conurbation in this country without a station. Certainly there are many places without a good service, but as I hinted at before, there needs to be more of a balance drawn between where can be viably served by rail and where buses or private cars would be better employed.
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Mansfield in the largest conurbation without an active railway station but it is being brough back into use soon
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