Slowest trains

[Esceptico]

When public transport works I’m a big fan. We lived in Zurich for a number of years and the trams were great. Driving/parking was a pain so we mostly used public transport.

I’ve just had the misfortune of using public transport here in Auckland. Took the train. Four stops. About 2.5 miles. Almost 20 minutes!

I think worst though was the train from Patna to Bhagalpur that I did about 30 years ago. It took well over 12 hours. I caught it sometime between 3 and 4 am and it was dark again when I finally arrived. It was a hideous journey with about 20 people crammed into a space meant for 6. Many years afterwards a friend told me that Bhagalpur is not that far from Patna. I was taken aback given my experience but actually it is only 160 miles. So probably less than an hour on a Japanese train!

[gamefreaks]

I find train journeys immensely frustrating. It’s on rails. It should either be accelerating, braking or travelling at max speed. Instead it seems to meander and trundle through the countryside for mile after mile.

[Pothole]

gamefreaks said:

I find train journeys immensely frustrating. It’s on rails. It should either be accelerating, braking or travelling at max speed. Instead it seems to meander and trundle through the countryside for mile after mile.

That is max speed.

[Esceptico]

Pothole said:

gamefreaks said:

I find train journeys immensely frustrating. It’s on rails. It should either be accelerating, braking or travelling at max speed. Instead it seems to meander and trundle through the countryside for mile after mile.

That is max speed.

Depends upon the country. I’ve done Kyoto to Tokyo on the bullet train - 319 miles in about 2 hours.

[Pothole]

Esceptico said:

Pothole said:

gamefreaks said:

I find train journeys immensely frustrating. It’s on rails. It should either be accelerating, braking or travelling at max speed. Instead it seems to meander and trundle through the countryside for mile after mile.

That is max speed.

Depends upon the country. I’ve done Kyoto to Tokyo on the bullet train - 319 miles in about 2 hours.

Point missed. Countryside branch lines in the UK and many other places are not designed to run at Shinkansen or TGV speeds. Meandering and trundling is max speed for those lines.

[MBBlat]

The slowest express train in the world is Swiss, the Glacier Express has an average speed of 24mph. I’ve done it twice, it’s quite relaxing.

[Exige46]

Esceptico said:

I’ve just had the misfortune of using public transport here in Auckland. Took the train. Four stops. About 2.5 miles. Almost 20 minutes!

You haven't tried the NZ answer to the commuter train from Hamilton to Auckland CBD yet then?! That's a LOL. And Wellington trains - most stations are closed most of the time and the only way to purchase a ticket onboard is with cash. But on the flipside, they are cheap. And if you forget your season ticket or don't have cash you aren't made to feel like a criminal like the UK, its just 'yeah, just pay tomorrow, all good'. Oh - and no toilets on the trains, so if you are an hour out of town it's a very long, painful ride home after a night at the pub!

[donkmeister]

The Shepperton-Waterloo branch line is pretty slow... I'm sure it's far from the slowest but it takes almost an hour to travel a smidge over 20 miles with quite a few stops along the way.

It's not uncommon that people who live near mainline stations outside of cities can get into that city more quickly than those who live in the suburbs, so sometimes it's better to live fully outside of the city and have more space to live than to live in a suburb where you have few of the benefits of living in said city.

[Riley Blue]

donkmeister said:

The Shepperton-Waterloo branch line is pretty slow... I'm sure it's far from the slowest but it takes almost an hour to travel a smidge over 20 miles with quite a few stops along the way.

Slow and expensive for the distance travelled.

[Nico Adie]

It's a tram and not a train, but the route from Praia das Macas to Sintra takes 40 minutes to travel 13km. It's a lovely journey though in fairness!

https://www.sintra-portugal.com/Attractions/Sintra...

[Scabutz]

Pothole said:

Esceptico said:

Pothole said:

gamefreaks said:

I find train journeys immensely frustrating. It’s on rails. It should either be accelerating, braking or travelling at max speed. Instead it seems to meander and trundle through the countryside for mile after mile.

That is max speed.

Depends upon the country. I’ve done Kyoto to Tokyo on the bullet train - 319 miles in about 2 hours.

Point missed. Countryside branch lines in the UK and many other places are not designed to run at Shinkansen or TGV speeds. Meandering and trundling is max speed for those lines.

I think what he meant though is the UK so often trains dont anywhere near their "max speed" whatever it is. I get the West Coast mainline when I was working in the office. The pendolino trains can top 125mph, but so often they are bumbling along because of delayed trains, broken signals, broken tracks, leaves on the line, etc tec.

[Yertis]

A friend of mine – the Queen's go-to expert on hens, apparently – used to live in South Africa, and once took a steam train up to Dar es Salaam or somewhere like that. It took 15 days, just continuously chugging along at barely above walking pace. He thoroughly enjoyed it – "it were like being on an ocean liner, going through the bush" – and spent his time stretched out on the veranda watching the landscape slowly recede.

[Condi]

Scabutz said:

I think what he meant though is the UK so often trains dont anywhere near their "max speed" whatever it is. I get the West Coast mainline when I was working in the office. The pendolino trains can top 125mph, but so often they are bumbling along because of delayed trains, broken signals, broken tracks, leaves on the line, etc tec.

And the same people who complain about this also complain about HS2 destroying the countryside.

[Earthdweller]

Clitheroe to Manchester on a Pacer .. nearly two hours .. seems like a lifetime of rattled fillings

Same journey by car 45 minutes

[Magnum 475]

Scabutz said:

Pothole said:

Esceptico said:

Pothole said:

gamefreaks said:

I find train journeys immensely frustrating. It’s on rails. It should either be accelerating, braking or travelling at max speed. Instead it seems to meander and trundle through the countryside for mile after mile.

That is max speed.

Depends upon the country. I’ve done Kyoto to Tokyo on the bullet train - 319 miles in about 2 hours.

Point missed. Countryside branch lines in the UK and many other places are not designed to run at Shinkansen or TGV speeds. Meandering and trundling is max speed for those lines.

I think what he meant though is the UK so often trains dont anywhere near their "max speed" whatever it is. I get the West Coast mainline when I was working in the office. The pendolino trains can top 125mph, but so often they are bumbling along because of delayed trains, broken signals, broken tracks, leaves on the line, etc tec.

We seem to have missed the trick that most of Europe worked out >50 years ago. Express trains need their own tracks, they shouldn't be sharing track with Local / Freight traffic. The tracks can be parallel, but the express lines must be dedicated.

The West Coast main line works fine until Rugby, when one branch turns off towards Birmingham - shared tracks, Pendolino gets stuck behind local traffic.....

Go to France, Germany, etc and there are designated tracks for fast trains, that slow trains aren't allowed to use. Simple, isn't it??

[Scabutz]

Magnum 475 said:

Scabutz said:

Pothole said:

Esceptico said:

Pothole said:

gamefreaks said:

I find train journeys immensely frustrating. It’s on rails. It should either be accelerating, braking or travelling at max speed. Instead it seems to meander and trundle through the countryside for mile after mile.

That is max speed.

Depends upon the country. I’ve done Kyoto to Tokyo on the bullet train - 319 miles in about 2 hours.

Point missed. Countryside branch lines in the UK and many other places are not designed to run at Shinkansen or TGV speeds. Meandering and trundling is max speed for those lines.

I think what he meant though is the UK so often trains dont anywhere near their "max speed" whatever it is. I get the West Coast mainline when I was working in the office. The pendolino trains can top 125mph, but so often they are bumbling along because of delayed trains, broken signals, broken tracks, leaves on the line, etc tec.

We seem to have missed the trick that most of Europe worked out >50 years ago. Express trains need their own tracks, they shouldn't be sharing track with Local / Freight traffic. The tracks can be parallel, but the express lines must be dedicated.

The West Coast main line works fine until Rugby, when one branch turns off towards Birmingham - shared tracks, Pendolino gets stuck behind local traffic.....

Go to France, Germany, etc and there are designated tracks for fast trains, that slow trains aren't allowed to use. Simple, isn't it??

Yes this. The ones that stop at MK, and not all do, have to move over to the slow track, then just before or past (can't remember which) Leighton Buzzard it has to move back on to the fast track, but so often it progresses slowly or grinds to a hault waiting for it to be clear to cross.

They added an extra track at MK years ago, but that was to just allow the ones that won't stopping to progress, ones that do stop at MK have the same problem

[P5BNij]

Just past Leighton Buzzard, Ledburn Junction - in fact, it's roughly half way between L.Buzzard and Cheddington stations and is where the great train robbery took place back in August 1963, although the physical junction was a little further north in those days and known as Sears Crossing

It's easy to forget that the WCML was mostly double track when it first opened as the London & Birmingham Railway in 1938, the tripling and quadrupling came some years later. There has been talk of quadrupling the Rugby - B'ham section many times but the cost and disruption have always knocked the idea into touch.

Edited by P5BNij on Monday 19th July 19:32

[48k]

Scabutz said:

Magnum 475 said:

Scabutz said:

Pothole said:

Esceptico said:

Pothole said:

gamefreaks said:

I find train journeys immensely frustrating. It’s on rails. It should either be accelerating, braking or travelling at max speed. Instead it seems to meander and trundle through the countryside for mile after mile.

That is max speed.

Depends upon the country. I’ve done Kyoto to Tokyo on the bullet train - 319 miles in about 2 hours.

Point missed. Countryside branch lines in the UK and many other places are not designed to run at Shinkansen or TGV speeds. Meandering and trundling is max speed for those lines.

I think what he meant though is the UK so often trains dont anywhere near their "max speed" whatever it is. I get the West Coast mainline when I was working in the office. The pendolino trains can top 125mph, but so often they are bumbling along because of delayed trains, broken signals, broken tracks, leaves on the line, etc tec.

We seem to have missed the trick that most of Europe worked out >50 years ago. Express trains need their own tracks, they shouldn't be sharing track with Local / Freight traffic. The tracks can be parallel, but the express lines must be dedicated.

The West Coast main line works fine until Rugby, when one branch turns off towards Birmingham - shared tracks, Pendolino gets stuck behind local traffic.....

Go to France, Germany, etc and there are designated tracks for fast trains, that slow trains aren't allowed to use. Simple, isn't it??

Yes this. The ones that stop at MK, and not all do, have to move over to the slow track, then just before or past (can't remember which) Leighton Buzzard it has to move back on to the fast track, but so often it progresses slowly or grinds to a hault waiting for it to be clear to cross.

They added an extra track at MK years ago, but that was to just allow the ones that won't stopping to progress, ones that do stop at MK have the same problem

If only they could build a new fast line dedicated to take the express traffic from the West Coast Main Line which will in turn free up capacity on the existing WCML and improve performance of the local services and freight services.

[Pothole]

Magnum 475 said:

Scabutz said:

Pothole said:

Esceptico said:

Pothole said:

gamefreaks said:

I find train journeys immensely frustrating. It’s on rails. It should either be accelerating, braking or travelling at max speed. Instead it seems to meander and trundle through the countryside for mile after mile.

That is max speed.

Depends upon the country. I’ve done Kyoto to Tokyo on the bullet train - 319 miles in about 2 hours.

Point missed. Countryside branch lines in the UK and many other places are not designed to run at Shinkansen or TGV speeds. Meandering and trundling is max speed for those lines.

I think what he meant though is the UK so often trains dont anywhere near their "max speed" whatever it is. I get the West Coast mainline when I was working in the office. The pendolino trains can top 125mph, but so often they are bumbling along because of delayed trains, broken signals, broken tracks, leaves on the line, etc tec.

We seem to have missed the trick that most of Europe worked out >50 years ago. Express trains need their own tracks, they shouldn't be sharing track with Local / Freight traffic. The tracks can be parallel, but the express lines must be dedicated.

The West Coast main line works fine until Rugby, when one branch turns off towards Birmingham - shared tracks, Pendolino gets stuck behind local traffic.....

Go to France, Germany, etc and there are designated tracks for fast trains, that slow trains aren't allowed to use. Simple, isn't it??

We're catching up, if the campaigners don't manage to stop HS2

[Amateurish]

MBBlat said:

The slowest express train in the world is Swiss, the Glacier Express has an average speed of 24mph. I’ve done it twice, it’s quite relaxing.

It's a great train, but it's not an express!

As for slowest line, I did the route from Bere Alston to Gunnislake a couple of weeks ago. About 5 miles in 20 minutes.