Rail Travel

[Dave at kelton]

So popped down south to see the children in Oxford today by train. A complete pain in the bum!

Booked my ticket then get an email last night to say my train is cancelled but I can get the next one so check and that’s cancelled too. Change the booking to two hours earlier all fine and wake up to another email that the second train is now cancelled but I can get one an hour later. Okay, get to Preston for an extra hour wait and told that train is now running twenty minutes late! 🤬🤬🤬. Finally get on the train to Wolverhampton to be told I will miss the connection because the train is running late and then just before we get there…don’t worry the connection to Oxford is running twenty five minutes late so if you are smart with changing platforms you will still catch it. Overall journey one hour twenty late so will be claiming my refund.

This country is screwed wherever you look!

[Yellow Bear]

2 minutes ago, Dave at kelton said:

So popped down south to see the children in Oxford today by train. A complete pain in the bum!

Booked my ticket then get an email last night to say my train is cancelled but I can get the next one so check and that’s cancelled too. Change the booking to two hours earlier all fine and wake up to another email that the second train is now cancelled but I can get one an hour later. Okay, get to Preston for an extra hour wait and told that train is now running twenty minutes late! 🤬🤬🤬. Finally get on the train to Wolverhampton to be told I will miss the connection because the train is running late and then just before we get there…don’t worry the connection to Oxford is running twenty five minutes late so if you are smart with changing platforms you will still catch it. Overall journey one hour twenty late so will be claiming my refund.

This country is screwed wherever you look!

And they want paying more

[Ultrastu]

And the government  want us to all use public transport  .no chance in hell 

[Jaymo]

15 minutes ago, Ultrastu said:

And the government  want us to all use public transport  .no chance in hell 

This Government desire is to use it, the one sitting across the house have even more wacky ideas. 

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, apart from the train problems I'm sure your children were pleased to see you, 👍 

[London Best]

I would not dream of using public transport for any domestic travel. It’s bad enough when you have to travel by air.

[discobob]

Dropped my youngest off at Warrington Bank Quay this morning - he is going up to Edinburgh to go the Fringe - £17 return!! It cost me nearly that for the diesel to get him to the station

He had a text saying that his train was 10 minutes late before we left home - but it is OK as he has no time dependency on other services.

[London Best]

1 hour ago, discobob said:

It cost me nearly that for the diesel to get him to the station

Plus as much again to collect him when he returns. Plus he will likely want a taxi when he gets there and another when he leaves. 
Quite apart from the fact that he has to travel with the general public, which is gross. For me personally, the cost of private transport is worth every penny.

[old man]

HS2 will cure all?

[Vince Green]

I travel by train all the time it's cheaper than a long drive but lately they have been dire.

A couple if weeks back on a Sunday evening I got a train from Birmingham New St to london Euston 

It was only £11 prebooked and I supposedly had a booked seat.

When the train came in it was already totally rammed. The train before had been cancelled so it had been picking up two lots of passengers all the way through.

I have lived in London for many years and I am used to crowded rush hour trains but this exceeded even that.

No way was it legal to have that many people on a train.  And it was so hot and stuffy that I seriously couldn't breathe. In the end I had to bail out before I passed out

I got off at Watford Junction and used my local knowledge to get home on  a different train and a bus.

I've not been on a train since, I'm going up to Birmingham again tomorrow (it's a regular Sunday trip for me to visit my son and his family) and I'm driving it.

The train used to be a really quick and cheap way to get up there and back on a Sunday but I'm wary now

Edited August 6, 2022 by Vince Green

[London Best]

I rest my case.

[enfieldspares]

On 04/08/2022 at 19:55, Ultrastu said:

And the government  want us to all use public transport  .no chance in hell 

Know your place pleb! Buses, trains, bikes are your portion. The roads are for the wealthy in their all electric Lexus limousines!

Now if you said that outright you'd be rightly pilloried. But dress it us a "green and clean" initiative and wheel out the Thunberg creature and folk lap it up and want yet more. You coudn't make it up!

The "park 'n ride" buses in Leicester are now "green and clean" and electric. And made in...China! It's a disgrace. We are destroying British industry to import from China. Madness!

And that money you pay on the bus and the train? They're all privatised or foreign owned. 

Edited August 6, 2022 by enfieldspares

[Mr.C]

I use trains every day from South Coast to London for work. If there's one thing that'll cause me to jack it in it'll be be the travel. At well over 5k a year it sometimes makes little or no sense. 

[Vince Green]

On 05/08/2022 at 08:45, London Best said:

I would not dream of using public transport for any domestic travel. It’s bad enough when you have to travel by air.

To be fair, until recently I have used the trains a lot and always found them excellent. Quicker and much cheaper than driving and much less stressful 

I can only hope they sort themselves out soon and get back to how they were.

[London Best]

1 hour ago, Vince Green said:

To be fair, until recently I have used the trains a lot and always found them excellent. Quicker and much cheaper than driving and much less stressful 

I can only hope they sort themselves out soon and get back to how they were.

You’re welcome to them. I don’t want to share my travel with the unknown rest of society, coughing and breathing diseases over each other in a confined space. Even planes are only like cattle trucks with wings. Your own transport is worth every penny. I bet somebody drives you to and from the station, or do you use the most obnoxious form of transport yet devised, the bus?

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, interesting observation on bus and train travel London best 🤔how do you get about in London ? I'm very happy to go by bus even the inconvenience of waiting 10 minutes, as it goes past 2 petrol stations that I do not need visit and pay a fortune for petrol to get to the same place I am going to , and it's free 👍👍

Edited August 7, 2022 by oldypigeonpopper

[London Best]

4 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, interesting observation on bus and train travel London best 🤔how do you get about in London ? I'm very happy to go by bus even the inconvenience of waiting 10 minutes, as it goes past 2 petrol stations that I do not need visit and pay a fortune for petrol to get to the same place I am going to , and it's free 👍👍

I avoid going to London.
I think I have been three times since 1979, and only five times in my life, and one of those was a junior school trip.

[oldypigeonpopper]

49 minutes ago, London Best said:

I avoid going to London.
I think I have been three times since 1979, and only five times in my life, and one of those was a junior school trip.

Hello, I've been to London a few times but glad to get back , some people like the hustle and bustle of city life but it would not be for me 

[London Best]

6 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, I've been to London a few times but glad to get back , some people like the hustle and bustle of city life but it would not be for me 

Been thinking: 

School trip aged ten. 
Did the 1979 boat show and a West End show as a guest. The hotel had it’s own parking. 
Did the countryside pro-hunting march, 2003? Can’t remember where we parked, but did a LOT of walking.
As a loader the host one day was Richard Purdey. Got chatting and he invited me to take the keepers/loaders for a visit to the factory, then lunch at the shop. Parked outside of both. 
Went to Holland & Holland for a craftsman demonstration together with Dunks on here. Drove to Stanmore and took the tube to just down the road from Bruton Street (Berkeley Square?) as was informed parking was impossible.

Yup, five times. As you say, always glad to get back home to where the sheep are friendlier.
 

Edited August 7, 2022 by London Best

[discobob]

On 05/08/2022 at 10:17, London Best said:

Plus as much again to collect him when he returns. Plus he will likely want a taxi when he gets there and another when he leaves. 
Quite apart from the fact that he has to travel with the general public, which is gross. For me personally, the cost of private transport is worth every penny.

Well the alternative would have been for me to run him there and come back, and then drive there to pick him up - no thanks

I also have to get the train to work - I do have to say the Transport For Wales train is fine - but I then have to swap to a Merseyrail train which isn't and I always stand up on them.

I have also commuted to London 5 days a week in the past by train from Chester and on the whole that was pretty good although I slept on the way down. I believe now you have to change at Crewe which would kybosh any future commuting ideas... 

[Vince Green]

2 hours ago, discobob said:

I believe now you have to change at Crewe which would kybosh any future commuting ideas... 

You can still get direct trains from Chester to London. Although most times you have to change at Crewe especially at weekends 

But the journey time is two hours! It would take five hours to drive it because you would probably need a stop.

[discobob]

16 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

You can still get direct trains from Chester to London. Although most times you have to change at Crewe especially at weekends 

But the journey time is two hours! It would take five hours to drive it because you would probably need a stop.

For me I worked the commute into my sleep time - if I had to change a Crewe that would rowlox the sleep pattern 😉 and when work and commute was 14 or so hours a day. When I first done it I could catch the 7.15 from Chester - they had to remove the diesel engine at Crewe - I could be at the desk by 9.30am which is a good psychological time. Last time I done it it was 6.25 as although they were then running the diesel pendelino all the way through they played with the times so it arrived in London later and the 6.25 got in at @8.25 so I was at my desk before 9. Then I worked a late/early split to make sure I caught the direct through train back to chester as the change at Crewe added 30 minutes onto the journey....