I'm on a Virgin Train right now.... Its a disgrace

[Nik da Greek]

...and as for the DfT... Well, don't forget Grayling said none of it* was anything to do with him, so that's OK. No accountability here either, kids

*"it" can be taken as shorthand for "the entire and catastrophic collapse of the complete rail network in the South of England for almost a year"

[Yertis]

wormus said:

You sound like company director material. Trains are meant for single mums and the infirm as you are finding out. You need to be in First class or pounding the M6, dominating lane 3 in an Audi. Your time will come.

When I found myself in that position I bought myself a Monaro CV8 – the thinking man's choice, I'm sure you'll agree.

But after eight years I did eventually have to replace it with an Audi so your point stands, I guess.

[Labradorofperception]

My company has a real hard on for train costs.

No open returns, no first class, steward's inquiry if you book less than 3 days before.

So, i can either spend 3 hours in first, with a table, power, wifi and do plenty of work, chargeable at £xxx per hour, and hopefully make my reporting deadline

Or, sit in standard, in an airline seat, or fight for a table with a fat lady, her mahoosive handbag (which always seems to need its own seat), kids drawing on the table and two lads giving it some on the Stella, at 6am.

If i am cattle, i leave the laptop in the bag and just read a book - just finished Michael Edwarde's excellent book, next up is End of the Road, Downfall of Rover.

[Countdown]

HannsG said:

I'm a contractor and too tight to pay for first. Even though I am on decent day rate. Could expense it also.

Out of interest, if you're a Contractor, why AREN'T you expensing it?

Going back to the original post, yes, I fully agree. I've been travelling regularly from Manchester to London over the last 15 years and the service has progressively become worse. Standard class is a rip-off and first-class is worse. I'm not sure if space is THAT much better in first and there are far too many carriages that literally stink of piss.

Given the amount that Virgin charge for tickets they must be absolutely coining it in. In fact, if it wasn't for the extortionate cost of parking it would often be cheaper to fly down to London than take the train.

Anyway I've found it's cheaper and easier to go down the night before and stay overnight rather than endure cattle class between 6am and 12pm.

[Countdown]

Labradorofperception said:

My company has a real hard on for train costs.

No open returns, no first class, steward's inquiry if you book less than 3 days before.

So, i can either spend 3 hours in first, with a table, power, wifi and do plenty of work, chargeable at £xxx per hour, and hopefully make my reporting deadline

Or, sit in standard, in an airline seat, or fight for a table with a fat lady, her mahoosive handbag (which always seems to need its own seat), kids drawing on the table and two lads giving it some on the Stella, at 6am.

If i am cattle, i leave the laptop in the bag and just read a book - just finished Michael Edwarde's excellent book, next up is End of the Road, Downfall of Rover.

Re: the bit in bold - you'd be surprised how many people make that argument when the reality is somewhat different. One of my roles is overseeing expenses - as a company we spend roughly £150k a month with our Travel provider. At the last review we stopped first class travel completely because it just isn't worth it. Actually most of our offices have really good VC suites, everybody's PC/Laptop/Ipad has Skype and we can also use Cisco conferencing. The "need" to actually physically travel to meetings isn't there but some people seem to take a perverse pride in boasting about the amount of travelling they do. For others it's a bit of a jolly; a day away from the office, a night in a cushy hotel, and give the expenses a bit of hammer.

[mcbook]

Countdown said:

Re: the bit in bold - you'd be surprised how many people make that argument when the reality is somewhat different. One of my roles is overseeing expenses - as a company we spend roughly £150k a month with our Travel provider. At the last review we stopped first class travel completely because it just isn't worth it. Actually most of our offices have really good VC suites, everybody's PC/Laptop/Ipad has Skype and we can also use Cisco conferencing. The "need" to actually physically travel to meetings isn't there but some people seem to take a perverse pride in boasting about the amount of travelling they do. For others it's a bit of a jolly; a day away from the office, a night in a cushy hotel, and give the expenses a bit of hammer.

I agree that some people invent the need to travel and just want a jolly. For certain types of businesses/roles this is definitely true. Travel for internal meetings should absolutely be minimised.

However, I work in consulting and there's just no substitute for being on the client site. Being sat beside the client and their team is the most productive place to be. Can usually manage with 3 days per week but any less and things begin to fall apart.

When you impose a travel policy like you mentioned, on people who really do need to travel, you will see employee engagement dropping through the floor pretty quickly.

[Countdown]

mcbook said:

I agree that some people invent the need to travel and just want a jolly. For certain types of businesses/roles this is definitely true. Travel for internal meetings should absolutely be minimised.

However, I work in consulting and there's just no substitute for being on the client site. Being sat beside the client and their team is the most productive place to be. Can usually manage with 3 days per week but any less and things begin to fall apart.

When you impose a travel policy like you mentioned, on people who really do need to travel, you will see employee engagement dropping through the floor pretty quickly.

I agree with you. I should have made the distinction between internal and external facing travel.

[Baby Shark doo doo doo doo]

Digger said:

Baby Shark doo doo doo doo said:

Could be worse

What’s the price of the average 1st class ticket?

I seem to remember it was free, or my friend paid when I experienced Indian train surfing. Not my photo above, but it was actually quite cool sat on top of the train

[w8pmc]

Countdown said:

Re: the bit in bold - you'd be surprised how many people make that argument when the reality is somewhat different. One of my roles is overseeing expenses - as a company we spend roughly £150k a month with our Travel provider. At the last review we stopped first class travel completely because it just isn't worth it. Actually most of our offices have really good VC suites, everybody's PC/Laptop/Ipad has Skype and we can also use Cisco conferencing. The "need" to actually physically travel to meetings isn't there but some people seem to take a perverse pride in boasting about the amount of travelling they do. For others it's a bit of a jolly; a day away from the office, a night in a cushy hotel, and give the expenses a bit of hammer.

For the most part i have to totally disagree, however i caveat that with my Business role being Head of Sales, so somewhat different to those process/technical types or presentations.

BUT i would favour a face to face over a virtual meeting almost every time. The actual word gives it away as on a Conference line you're NOT MEETing you've conversing. Can't gauge body language or levels of interest/engagement over a phone line, even in the somewhat weird environment of video conferencing.

I'm really not a fan of travelling, but most things are better handled face to face & i've yet to experience a case where this isn't usually correct.

Oops, another thread that i'm dragging off topic as wasn't this one about trains?

[rs1952]

Labradorofperception said:

My company has a real hard on for train costs.

No open returns, no first class, steward's inquiry if you book less than 3 days before.

So, i can either spend 3 hours in first, with a table, power, wifi and do plenty of work, chargeable at £xxx per hour, and hopefully make my reporting deadline

Or, sit in standard, in an airline seat, or fight for a table with a fat lady, her mahoosive handbag (which always seems to need its own seat), kids drawing on the table and two lads giving it some on the Stella, at 6am.

If i am cattle, i leave the laptop in the bag and just read a book - just finished Michael Edwarde's excellent book, next up is End of the Road, Downfall of Rover.

There is a third option (other than the obvious one of going off-peak)

If your company is giving you a second class warrant for the ticket, you can upgrade it to first yourself by paying the difference at the booking office before you travel (don't try to do it on the train in case Revenue Protection think you're pulling a fast one and nail you for it)

I used to do this frequently back in the 90s when I worked for a local council and was frequently sent to attend meetings in London. Nobody lower than the Chief Executive got first class travel out of them...

[Zed Ed]

My wife had planned to take the train up to the Lake District for this summers holiday, but were put off by a friend’s comments about Pendolino travel sickness.

She is now flying Loganair from Southend Airport to Lake District Carlisle Airport; £44.

[Tempest_5]

Having lived "abroad" on mainland Europe I don't understand how our rail system is so screwed. The German train system I found to not be as perfect as it has been made out to be, but it was still good. The Austrian one was pretty good in my brief experience of it.

Is the problem to do with the situation of private companies, then nationalisation, then private companies again? I have come to conclude the only way to make it work again is to nationalise the system and hopefully remove the need to pay share holders make a profit. My naive assumption being that the money can then go to improving the system which will ultimately be for the better for the UK economically/environment.

P.S. Was I sad for having to stifle a giggle when I was served by a Frau Flick at a Deutsche Bahn station? (you have to be over 45 to get that).

[CasioPasio]

wormus said:

You sound like company director material. Trains are meant for single mums and the infirm as you are finding out. You need to be in First class or pounding the M6, dominating lane 3 in an Audi. Your time will come.

Did you get a reserved seat and was there somebody sitting in when you got on?

I take offense

[Pwig]

Tempest_5 said:

Having lived "abroad" on mainland Europe I don't understand how our rail system is so screwed. The German train system I found to not be as perfect as it has been made out to be, but it was still good. The Austrian one was pretty good in my brief experience of it.

Is the problem to do with the situation of private companies, then nationalisation, then private companies again? I have come to conclude the only way to make it work again is to nationalise the system and hopefully remove the need to pay share holders make a profit. My naive assumption being that the money can then go to improving the system which will ultimately be for the better for the UK economically/environment.

P.S. Was I sad for having to stifle a giggle when I was served by a Frau Flick at a Deutsche Bahn station? (you have to be over 45 to get that).

Few little stats for you before you think about re-nationalisation.

The average profit margin for a TOC is 2%.

We have the second ‘best value’ train service in Europe, with only 40% of the average train ticket paid for by the tax payer.

Passenger numbers have doubled since 1997.

The I’ll fated virgin/stagecoach east coast deal put more money into the government coffers in 18 months than the previous Nationalised ‘East Coast’ railway did in 5 years.

The main problem was that when the railways were nationalised after the war there was precious little investment for nearly 60 years. We are slowly playing catch up.

[rs1952]

Tempest_5 said:

Having lived "abroad" on mainland Europe I don't understand how our rail system is so screwed. The German train system I found to not be as perfect as it has been made out to be, but it was still good. The Austrian one was pretty good in my brief experience of it.

Is the problem to do with the situation of private companies, then nationalisation, then private companies again? I have come to conclude the only way to make it work again is to nationalise the system and hopefully remove the need to pay share holders make a profit. My naive assumption being that the money can then go to improving the system which will ultimately be for the better for the UK economically/environment.

P.S. Was I sad for having to stifle a giggle when I was served by a Frau Flick at a Deutsche Bahn station? (you have to be over 45 to get that).

Given that people have written full-sized books on this subject, you ain’t gonna get a comprehensive reply in a few paragraphs on here! PWIG has listed some pertinent points and I’ll throw in a few more. What now follows is a simplistic summary of main events for those who don’t really understand railways – others may add to it or argue with it as they see fit

The railways came out of WW2 knackered, and there was no money to get them back in shape either from the Big Four pre-nationalisation or the government after it in 1948. The country kept going with steam traction long after the rest of Europe had begun to dieselise and electrify simply because we couldn’t afford to import oil when we had our own coal in the ground. And even with coal, the best stuff was being exported and the railway had to make do with coal dust glued together with cement known as ovoids and briquettes.

It was therefore not really possible for the railways to improve their services, and this coincided with the explosion in private transport which reduced the railway’s traffic to an extent that it was losing a fortune by the mid-50s, with the taxpayer picking up the bill.

And taxpayers don’t like picking up any bill, let alone for things they don’t use anyway, and the net result of that was Beeching and the widespread closures of the 60s. But that period didn’t just bring closures of lines and stations – it also brought “rationalisation” which meant reductions in capacity because it was thought that it was no longer needed – singling of double track railways; removal of passing loops; simplifying trackwork so that it was no longer possible, for example to “bypass” failed trains by running them on the adjacent line, and so on.

As PWIG said, the railways didn’t get much in terms of investment (although steam traction was abolished in 1968 and certain main lines were electrified), but the main reason for that was that traffic had flat-lined by the 1960s and was to stay that way for 30 years. The government was not going to invest large sums of money on a form of transport that few people were now using.

Fast forward now to the privatisation plans of the early 1990s and you find a government and civil service totally convinced that privatisation would see off the railways once and for all. They were so convinced that the railways wouldn’t survive privatisation and they invented a system of nationalisation in all but name. The government lets train operating companies (TOCs) run services by means of franchises; the government tells them what trains to run, when to run them, and what coaching stock they are allowed to use on them. The government even specifies the design of trains, which is why the latest new stock is fitted with ironing boards in place of proper seats – it’s cheaper than giving the passengers some comfort. Furthermore, the system is so designed that if the TOCs start to put the blame where it lies (ie with the DfT) they lose their franchises next time round.

What made the plan fall on its arse was that the railways didn’t fall on theirs. From the mid-90s onwards traffic on the railways increased exponentially and gradually many of those rationalisations of the 60s have had to be reversed. But that of course involves the government spending money on the railways and, whilst it is true that much is now being spent, the costs of putting right what happened during the wilderness years (1960s to 1980s) are immense. It will take time – a lot of time – and some of it cannot be easily reversed because so much railway land was sold off.

This was supposed to be a short post but as it has now got to over 600 words its time I stopped! I’ll come back to the prices of tickets and the unicorn that is renationalisation later on today

[Nik da Greek]

rs1952 said:

*British railways 101*

just about the pithiest, most succinct summation of the crass miss-management of rail in Britain post-war I've ever read. Write a book, RS1952

The cost is horrific... numbers you can't comprehend. Even on my small corner of the network, the amount of time, material and money poured into resurrecting derelict infrastructure that should never have been allowed to fall fallow in the first place West Worthing sidings, Brighton Down Yard, Lover's Walk beyond capacity and creaking at the seams, Three Bridges built brand new but unable to cope with all the new Siemens stock despite being their purpose-built depot, Cricklewood being rebuilt from the wilderness one buddliea bush at a time...It's enough to make accountants throw themselves of tall buildings.

And it was all there, like archaeology. Lost and forgotten and buried within a single generation of railwaymen and neglect

[rs1952]

ApOrbital said:

...£200 from mk to liverpool.

This intrigued me so I delved a little deeper. The only advertised fare on National Rail Enquiries between Milton Keynes and Liverpool is an “Anytime” ticket; 1st class return £334, second class £229. As it is a 287.5 mile round trip that makes it about 80 pence per mile second class, and 1.18 per mile first class.

Those prices are just plain bloody daft. And so are you if you choose to pay them…

Looking on the BR fares website (http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=MKC&dest=LIV) gives an off peak fare that is not shown on NRE. This is £176 first class, £99.80 second class, and there are cheaper options if you restrict yourself to a particular TOC (but not a particular train). These are still a bit pricey to my mind, as 2nd class is still nearly 35p per mile.

You can get a better deal by splitting the ticket for example at Stafford, so you buy a return from MK to Stafford and another one from Stafford to Liverpool. The nice man behind the counter at MK can sell you both, so you don’t need to get off the train at Stafford. You do, however, have to be travelling on a train that actually stops there otherwise your ticket isn’t valid. An off peak return from MK to Stafford is £20.50, and another one from there to Liverpool is £22.90, giving you a total price of £43.40 2nd class, just a teensy weensy bit better than the £229 you’d have forked out if you hadn’t done the basic research.

Finding the best rail fare deal can be a nightmare if you don’t really understand it, and moves are currently afoot to “simplify” the system. Personally I’m surprised they bothered at all and am confidently expecting a fudge when its all over, because there will be winners and losers. And the winners won’t think they’ve won enough in reduced prices, and the losers won’t like it because their fares will rise, so nobody will be happy.

A bit like Brexit really…

[rs1952]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I've always preferred the cock up theory to the conspiracy theory, and that is what we have here. A cock-up. But to be fair we also need to look at the reasons for it.

The railways were considered to be an outmoded form of transport that nobody wanted to use any more (outside London - and they didn't want to use it there either but had little choice). We were building motorways and other new roads like it was going out of fashion; Swampy and his merry band of chums were still babes in arms, and the only environmentalists there were to speak of were just having their annual march to Aldermaston and that was that.

The Beeching cuts had failed - dismally - to produce their predicted savings. The BR Property Board were charged with getting rid of as much "surplus" railway land as possible to offset the lack of savings from Beeching and help to reduce the railway's deficit, which was of course government spending.

And the trouble is, no matter how unpalatable the truth, for almost 30 years they were proved right. So as they say, now we are where we are, and not where we might like to be.

[Yertis]

rs1952 said:

The government even specifies the design of trains...

Why can/do they do that? I'd tell them to fk off. (Admittedly I'd not then win the franchise but then I'd not want it either.)

[Europa1]

rs1952 said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I've always preferred the cock up theory to the conspiracy theory, and that is what we have here. A cock-up. But to be fair we also need to look at the reasons for it.

The railways were considered to be an outmoded form of transport that nobody wanted to use any more (outside London - and they didn't want to use it there either but had little choice). We were building motorways and other new roads like it was going out of fashion; Swampy and his merry band of chums were still babes in arms, and the only environmentalists there were to speak of were just having their annual march to Aldermaston and that was that.

The Beeching cuts had failed - dismally - to produce their predicted savings. The BR Property Board were charged with getting rid of as much "surplus" railway land as possible to offset the lack of savings from Beeching and help to reduce the railway's deficit, which was of course government spending.

And the trouble is, no matter how unpalatable the truth, for almost 30 years they were proved right. So as they say, now we are where we are, and not where we might like to be.

To me one of the most insane examples of this "decapitation" was the old St Ives - Cambridge line, which was ripped up and replaced with guided busway a few years ago at vast expense. The project went nearly 100% over budget and 100% over timetable. Now, a few years after opening, the busway needs £30m of repairs (long concrete beams on fenland that contracts and expands), is often disrupted by cars and lorries getting stuck on it (when was the last time you heard of someone accidentally turning onto a railway...) and it's had no appreciable effect on car traffic on the A14, which was one of its main selling points. To add insult to injury, where it meets Cambridge on the north side, the buses take to the road network and fight their way through Cambridge traffic to where the busway restarts at Cambridge station, whereas the old railway line joined the main Kings Lynn-Cambridge-London line where the new Cambridge North station now stands and trains whistled through to Cambridge station, unimpeded by Cambridge's notorious traffic. The last stub of the St Ives line was lifted to create an extension of the busway to/from Cambridge North station.

You couldn't make it up.