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Broken & Late Ltd: Britain's Railways

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    They are cutting the trains yes, or they want to

    In surrey

    in Dorset

    They also want to sack guards

    Thats how you sweat your assets

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      The DfT would have to agree on the timetable.

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        Well if they’ve taken over the franchise, the Dept must be pretty relaxed over the shit they’ll try to pull?

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          It's the consultation for the Dec 2018 timetable, I think.

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            New trains coming to Tyne and Wear Metro. Fully funded in the budget. But not even going to be ordered till 2020. I never get these delays.

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              West Midlands Trains took over the old London Midland franchise this morning.

              Cancellations all over the show due to the snowfall.

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                Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                They are cutting the trains yes, or they want to

                In surrey

                in Dorset

                They also want to sack guards

                Thats how you sweat your assets
                They aren't cutting trains, they're increasing them because they're bringing the old Eurostar platforms at Waterloo in. However (at least as far as the Surrey article goes) to make best use of that capacity they can't stop so many trains at Clapham Junction in rush hour, because every train that stops there on the fast line means there is no path for another to get to Waterloo. If you commute from Surrey or Hants to Clapham J that is obviously annoying but it makes complete sense to boost capacity overall.

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                  That makes sense.

                  But I think they've pulled back from some of their proposals, because it wasn't a great look to be trying to scrap trains when you've started the franchise amid great fanfare about the extra services.

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                    I went on one of the new trains on the Great Western yesterday. Admittedly it was off peak, but it was very pleasant.

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                      The Class 800s?

                      Have they sorted out the initial issues with leaks and the like?

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                        Yeah.

                        Haven't heard much about problems, since the launch day where the train Grayling was on went wrong.

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                          Oh dear.

                          Natalie Bennett‏Verified account
                          @natalieben
                          On the way to Madrid from Brussels, via Lyon and Barcelona. ETA 11.10pm. Travelling relaxed but lots of work to do. Used @loco2 for tickets
                          DriverPotter‏
                          @DriverPotter
                          5h5 hours ago
                          Just wondering why High Speed Rail is great in Europe yet opposed in the UK?
                          Natalie Bennett‏Verified account
                          @natalieben
                          Follow Follow @natalieben
                          Longer distances mean actually replacing flights (unlike #HS2), affordable (unlike HS2), not planned on back of envelope (unlike HS2)
                          She's not actually aware that HS2 trains will run to Glasgow, Edinburgh etc? It's much more likely that you'll replace a flight if the train's 3-4 hours, than the 10-12 hours her journey's taking.

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                            But if we can factor in journeys on partly on HS2 of 10 hours as replacing lots of flights, that makes her opposing HS2 even more illogical. That's the Paris-Scotland air market sown up, provided there's a people carrier stuck in at St Pancras-Euston.

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                              Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View Post
                              Oh dear.







                              She's not actually aware that HS2 trains will run to Glasgow, Edinburgh etc? It's much more likely that you'll replace a flight if the train's 3-4 hours, than the 10-12 hours her journey's taking.
                              Tubbs, when exactly will we get the shiny HS2 line to Embra and Glasgow? Sometime after commuter rail in the Northern Powerhouse finally gets electrified?

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                                Not the line, the trains. They go up HS2 as far as it goes then onto the existing lines. That saves something like 45 minutes Edinburgh to London, 30 minutes Glasgow to London. That's reckoned to be in the area where you can make decent inroads to air travel. About the same savings from Birmingham too

                                As I understand it, there's stuff they can do on the existing line to get Glasgow in something like 3 hours.

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                                  Who on earth flies from London to Edinburgh/Glasgow? And are these people really likely to switch to rail if a mere 30 minutes are shaved off the journey time? I would have thought the cost of the tickets would be much more of a factor.

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                                    Business travellers often go both ways in one day. An hour/ hour and a half off your travelling compared with before is very handy. Plus whatever can be saved by improving the mainline N of HS2.

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                                      I can’t fathom it either, but the “shuttle” is the busiest flight for both GLA and EDI. Business wanks surely.

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                                        Won't lots of those be getting onward flights from Heathrow?

                                        If you're getting a plane from Heathrow anyway, you'll probably get a plane from Glasgow too. But if you're open to getting a train to Heathrow, those journeys are a lot quicker than before because HS2 goes to Old Oak Common.

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                                          Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View Post
                                          Business travellers often go both ways in one day. An hour/ hour and a half off your travelling compared with before is very handy. Plus whatever can be saved by improving the mainline N of HS2.
                                          If you live centrally it might make less sense time-wise but if you live in the suburbs or outside of London and can get to an airport quicker than you can get to Kings Cross then it's the only way to make it work to go up and back in a day. It's generally cheaper too, considerably so if it means you're saving on the cost of a hotel.

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                                            Originally posted by Fussbudget View Post
                                            Who on earth flies from London to Edinburgh/Glasgow? And are these people really likely to switch to rail if a mere 30 minutes are shaved off the journey time? I would have thought the cost of the tickets would be much more of a factor.
                                            Flying from London to Scotland is environmentally reprehensible, but it's often the cheapest and least hassle to do.

                                            The M6, M1 and A1 are now a complete shambles, and it's now utterly impossible to do the road journey without sitting in queues at roadworks - even if you try to do the journey in the small hours, you end up sitting in a massive tailback somewhere in Staffordshire or Northumberland because the road is down to one lane for overnight works.

                                            The trains are often more expensive than flying, especially if you have to travel at short notice. And the rail experience is becoming less pleasant as the TOCs sweat the assets and stuff more and more people onto each train.

                                            Flying that short a distance is all kinds of wrong, but the alternatives have been made so slow, expensive, overcrowded and unpleasant that some folks (my parents for one) feel they have no choice.

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                                              Originally posted by blameless View Post
                                              The trains are often more expensive than flying, especially if you have to travel at short notice. And the rail experience is becoming less pleasant as the TOCs sweat the assets and stuff more and more people onto each train.
                                              Plus the vulnerability of the network to any disruption, and the consequences. I travelled from Lancaster to London recently and it took over six hours - the initial delay caused by a person being hit by a train (I know) having a ripple effect which resulted in the train being stationary near (but not near enough to) Euston due to all the tracks being occupied by trains which couldn't move out of Euston because the crews needed to operate them couldn't get there in time because their southbound trains were cancelled or delayed (partly because they couldn't get into Euston because..... etc etc). Since then I've declined two requests to go to London for meetings and done them by videoconference instead, but every week brings a similar tale from colleagues - journey times of 7-8 hours between Cumbria and London.

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                                                Fair enough, thanks for the replies folks. Presumably HS2 won't make a difference there.

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                                                  It's a fair question. Many in London don't give rail travel a first thought. Edinburgh's a long way away, innit?

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                                                    Anyone who follows me on Twitter may recall my gibbering rant at Southern Rail on Monday night. I needed to pop up and see my parents. Worthing to Horsham. Fifty-five minutes, change at Barnham. Easy.

                                                    The journey up there was fine, but coming back my train was delayed by fifteen minutes, meaning that I missed the connecting train, and the connecting train after that was cancelled, meaning that I had to wait around at Barnham for fifty minutes in a temperature well below freezing. I got home two and three-quarter hours after I left, for a journey of thirty-odd miles. I'd ummed and ahhed over whether to take my boys with me - they're eight weeks and two years old respectively - and I'm really, really, really glad that I didn't.

                                                    On top of that, the attitude of the staff really, really, really stank (understandable, because they must get shat on all day, but that doesn;t change the fact that they're the public face of the company), and every time I tweeted about it I got an identical automated reply from their Twitter account advising me to claim the money back. I kept giving them further chances, but screw it. Southern Rail just aren't worth the effort and annoyance. I'll do everything I can to avoid them from now on, which is a shame, because I really love travelling by train when it doesn't turn my blood to the consistency of Tizer.

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