Not good enough! (Railways in general)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	Railways in general
Date:	07/07/02 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very few

Disadvantages: Uncomfortable, Dirty, Unreliable

Recently I have been using the railways more and more. Previously, as a company car driver, the Chancellor of the Exchequer positively dissuaded me from doing so due to the swingeing Income Tax penalties incurred if you failed to cover more than 18,000 business miles per year. The consequence was that I drove everywhere even when I really didn't want to, such as into London.

Now, the tax situation has changed dramatically. Mileage is no longer a factor. Now, it's all about The Ecology. The "greener" your car (at least as far as CO2 emissions are concerned) the less you pay. I did the calculations and decided that it no longer made sense to run a company car. I now take the car allowance instead and use my own car.

Of course, now, I am interested in keeping my mileage as low as possible, not something that is of any concern when you have a company car, hence the increased use of rail travel.

I have to say, based on my experiences so far, I am seriously under-whelmed.

I live in Camberley. This region falls within the "management" of South West Trains. Camberley is not on a main train route. It falls inconveniently between the mainline from the South-West and Waterloo and the service from Reading to Waterloo. Few services travel non-stop from Camberley to London. Mostly you have to change trains at Ascot.

OK, so you need to change trains! That wouldn't be a problem so long as you could rely on the connections. However, I have lost count of the number of times I have been left stranded on Ascot station with over an hour to wait before a train can be expected, due to "operational difficulties". Many a time they have had to lay on taxis to get us home.

The end result is that nowadays I always travel to other stations to start my journey. For London that means Ascot or Brookwood. For journeys North, Ascot again. For the South-West, Farnborough.

South
West Trains also run some of the oldest rolling-stock around. Certainly they are mostly eight carriage trains but almost inevitably they are ancient slam-door trains. Recently I did manage to get a ride on one of their brand new trains, and very comfortable it was, excellent seats and air-conditioned. However, there were only four carriages and so packed, standing-room only!

What about other journeys?

I have travelled by train to Bournemouth. This should be a relatively straight-forward trip. I picked up a mainline service at Woking (note, again, nothing available direct from Camberley even though this is still South West Trains!). For no apparent reason the train stopped at a station just over half-way to Bournemouth and sat there for half an hour! No indication of what we were waiting for, I assume a late running connecting service.

I have also travelled to Chesterfield for a business meeting. This involved two changes, one at Reading and one at Birmingham. The second and third legs were Virgin Trains. The whole journey should have taken around four hours, not a lot more than it would have taken to drive.

The journey as far as Birmingham was reasonable and on time. Not great trains but acceptable. The train from Birmingham to Chesterfield was brand-new rolling-stock, Apparently identical to the one I mentioned before that I got from Waterloo but, once again, only four carriages. It was, of course, packed. I was lucky to get a seat.

We got as far as Derby and then stopped. It was announced that we were awaiting a connecting service. We waited half an hour. It was then announced that the reason we were waiting for a connecting service was that it was bringing the train crew to take the train the rest of the way to Newcastle, and we would be waiting another half an hour!

Eventually we were advised that a Midland Mainline service out of London was coming through and we could change to that servi
ce to continue our journey, so long as we only wanted to go as far as Sheffield.

The end result was that I was late for my meeting; fortunately the client was sympathetic, many wouldn't be.

The journey back started with a brand-new train out of Chesterfield and, yes, you've guessed it, only four carriages. I got one of the last seats. From Derby it was standing room only again. At least it made it all the way to Birmingham without further incident.

These are just a few examples. I could detail innumerable other times that I have experienced badly delayed or cancelled services. And I won't even start on Eurostar; roll on the high speed link!

Rail travel is simply too unreliable to provide an acceptable alternative to the private car, except for those journeys that you really don't want to make by road, such as into London. This is especially true for business travel.

For most journeys of any length, especially if it is to part of the country that would require multiple train changes, the car will continue to be the only feasible means of travel. There is the added advantage that you can travel door-to-door. By train, even when you arrive at your destination, you usually still have to find a taxi or bus to get you to your appointment.

All of this is, however, in the face of increasing Government aggression towards the motorist. Draconian regulations, ever-decreasing speed limits, speed cameras breeding like rabbits (there's a section of the A34 where there are six speed cameras within two miles, two of which are within 100 metres of each other), abandoned road-improvement schemes, road works that seem to last for years!

As usual (and, in this, the Tories have proved themselves to be no better than Labour, so this isn't a political issue) Government puts the cart before the horse. If you want to "encourage" greater use of public transport, you have first to prov
ide an acceptable level of service. It is no good using the stick if there is no carrot.

I see no likelihood that I would be inclined to use first and foremost rail travel within the foreseeable future. It will remain a selective an occasional alternative to the car, no matter the hassles I daily experience as a car driver.

Summary: