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Went to get my local train to Darlington and it was cancelled.Apparently there are no conductors available.Sunday is voluntary and overtime only so here we all sit hoping management can rustle up a conductor for the next train.WTF.
Compulsory Sundays?! I’m going to speak to my union!!
#firstworldproblems
Seriously though our train service is a joke for the developed world which once had a great train service.
Use it or lose it was never so apt. Seems we have lost it.
The thing is it's not as if it's under funded or doesn't have the demand. For the amount of pedestrian and freight usage that avail of the resources, it's a terrible managed and budgeted service. Too many big directors at the top taking too much of a chunk.
I do like taking the piss out of train "drivers" in my local. Lets face it, its not like they actually steer the things.
And they get really (REALLY) angry when you query why a job that could be so easily automated pays so well.
Im reminded of the old Jasper Carrot joke that went along the lines of "remember when we just used to joke about British Rail sandwiches"
Britain's rail system is absolute tosh, Im reminded of this everytime I catch a train somewhere else.
Thinking about my previous post, why are we even considering self driving cars when we don't have self driving trains?
In fairness the rest of society is going the same way as the trains, just turns out they're running early for once.
Why, in this day and age, does a train need a conductor? Oh yes, I remember...the RMT and ASLEF claim it's for safety....yet thousands of train journeys happen without them, quite safely
(Why are they called conductors?)
I always find that returning into the UK into any of our airports makes me think “we’re entering a third world country now”.
Massive queues because there’s no staff and the ones that are there have crap systems. Ceiling tiles missing or hanging down. Walking up what look like temporary staircases but which are, in fact, pretty much permanent.
Yes, these are first world problems, but these are the gateways into the country, and the first thing visitors see when they get here. But then, I suppose if 52% of the country don’t want any foreigners here, we are certainly going the right way about putting them off.
When I can get to Finland cheaper than I can get from Bristol to London then something is not right.
It's not just the airports, came back from holiday via the Eurotunnel last night and it's the same there. The French side is clean and with good road surfaces, as soon as you get out of the train you hit a pothole-covered exit ramp then you see how disgusting the British road network is.
It really feels like we are no longer a first world country when you return.
Of course we are a first world country.
To be properly third world we would need a ruling elite who are totally distanced from and unaffected by the problems their decisions have for the people they govern.
When I can get to Finland cheaper than I can get from Bristol to London then something is not right.
You get the train to Finland? That must take a long time.
It really feels like we are no longer a first world country when you return.
Take a look at the pay more tax thread and the fact that 90% are saying No gives you the answer. People with money want to keep it but then moan that everything has gone to pot.
Interesting point.
Brighton held its Pride weekend (this weekend)
So What did the train companies do..
yip..
Cancelled all the trains for passengers back to London.. so they ran them empty.
And people slept on the beach.
Take a look at the pay more tax thread and the fact that 90% are saying No gives you the answer. People with money want to keep it but then moan that everything has gone to pot.
Mmm no - people with money want to keep it rather than see it spent on giveaways to rich people and pointless vanity projects. If it was spent on stuff like regenerating industry and providing an infrastructure, things might be different.
You get the train to Finland? That must take a long time.
Very droll 😂
It really feels like we are no longer a first world country when you return.
It's been a while since I went to a "third world" country that had worse airports and train services than the UK.
having recently been in Singapore and enjoyed the MRT system. the UK transport network is shite
Why, in this day and age, does a train need a conductor?
So disabled people can get on and off, for a start.
On the one occasion that the train home from work caught fire- properly- flames above carriage roof height- I was very glad there was a guard/conductor/call him what you will on board.
The conductor got all the passengers to somewhere safe and if he hadn't been there, the ****ing old git with the huge trolley case (who could easily feature in the Daytime Arseholes thread) would have cheerfully blocked everyone else's escape route just so he could try and take his bag with him even though it was obviously too big to fit down the aisle and too heavy for him to move easily.
but HS2 is making some tory donors very rich so that's good
I was in a train crash a few years ago, the train hit a tractor at 90mph (40mph over what it should have been doing) with the obvious results.
The conductor was utterly useless, had no idea what to do and it was down to the passengers on the train to help everyone off. Plenty went wrong that day and my faith in humanity was restored by the actions of many people but the undertrained conductor wasn’t one of them.
It's not just our railways.
Our assembly plants for nuclear warheads are also falling to bits.
I'm sort-of amused by the way this country is pulling its own face off and feeding it to the dog, until I remember I have to live here.
Why, in this day and age, does a train need a conductor?
So disabled people can get on and off, for a start.
I travel everyday day on driver-only trains and regularly see wheelchair-bound passengers going on via ramps put there by station staff....seems to work fine
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I do like taking the piss out of train “drivers” in my local. Lets face it, its not like they actually steer the things.
And they get really (REALLY) angry when you query why a job that could be so easily automated pays so well.
When something goes wrong on a train, you'll be glad it wasn't automated. Whether that be a fault or an accident or something passenger related.
As for driver only trains, in an accident the driver's relatively likely to be incapacitated. And they're no use when there's a problem on board like abusive passengers or even something simple like people in the wrong seats.80% of all accidents involving the train/platform interface happened on driver-only trains even though they account for only 30% of services- and those incidents account for 50% of all fatalities and serious injuries on UK trains.
(that by itself isn't so much an argument for guards; but it's proof that there aren't sufficient safeguards to make driver-only trains adequately safe. Extra platform resources or technological solutions could overcome this, but they don't)
Why, in this day and age, does a train need a conductor?
If you get the one from glasgow to edinburgh on a weekend evening they have police officers nevermind conductors!
a problem on board like abusive passengers or even something simple like people in the wrong <span class="skimlinks-unlinked">seats</span>
I'm a regular train user. Trust me, the guards seem to have little will to intervene in most situations. On a crowded train from the south coast with a reserved seat that was occupied by someone who had just plucked the reserved note from the seat back I couldn't even get the guard to come to the carriage, all he said was the train was very full and the guy would probably get off in a couple of stops.
I've often seen guards intervene. They certainly do so more often than no-guards as well as presumably discouraging people from doing it in the first place
I live in Bristol. I have a meeting in York on Tuesday. I looked at getting the train there and back rather than driving. £292! £292! And that’s probably on Cross Country as well, which is an absolute shower of a service.
It’s no wonder we all stick to our cars.
edit - for contrast, I can travel from Geneva to Bourg Saint Maurice (same journey time as Bristol to York) for £29.99.
You know it's not working when train drivers get paid more than airline pilots.
I just booked a train for next Monday. £10.20 to get from Inverness to Strathcarron - with my bike. Bit of a billy bargain I thought,
I travel everyday day on driver-only trains and regularly see wheelchair-bound passengers going on via ramps put there by station staff….seems to work fine
Lots of unmanned stations. The majority round here are.
Very droll
Not really. You are comparing flying (which is a cheaper business to run) with rail
Lots of unmanned stations. The majority round here are.
Yep, most where I am are too. Although some do have an ticket seller in between 08:00 and 10:00.
I got the train to Glasgow last week. Brand new rolling stock that cut 8 mins off the journey
The issue is tory market ideology meaning too many folk taking profits out
I can't wait until we're out of Europe, and Britain is Great Again, and all of these problems that the Europeans have given us (who wants French rolling stock? I DON'T IT'S FRENCH!) will be disappeared by the Brexit Fairies.
The issue is tory market ideology meaning too many folk taking profits out
Ah. Best we take what regulatory authority they are subject to away from them, then. That will fix everything.
When something goes wrong on a train, you’ll be glad it wasn’t automated
Flawed statement.
The <b>Docklands Light Railway</b> (<b>DLR</b>) is an automated light metro system opened in 1987.
but HS2 is making some tory donors very rich so that’s good
Ahh yes, good old HS2. It'll be the saviour of our rail system & dead handy when the OP needs to get to Darlo.
You know it’s not working when train drivers get paid more than airline pilots.
My stepson's on about 46K. Do airline pilots get less than that?
Some do, yeah. Start from 36k, according to google
£46k and they don’t work sundays unless its double time? Where do I sign up?
Careful now! You’ll summon up his restless spirit...
Anyway... I don’t know where you lot live, but here in Northern Rail territory we bask in the glow of ruthless efficiency* the Germans would envy, and rolling stock to put Japanese Bullet Trains to shame ...
* if you just cancel all your services then, technically, they can’t be late
<div class="bbp-reply-author">bikebouy
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Flawed statement.
The <b>Docklands Light Railway</b> (<b>DLR</b>) is an automated light metro system opened in 1987.
Aye, on a totally new, unshared, purpose built, short journey rail network entirely in a city. It's not comparable to mainline services.
But despite all that, my statement's still 100% correct- if you have a problem on a DLR train you're going to be glad for the "captain" (all the automation does on the DLR is let the staff member out of the cabin- driverless with a captain/guard free to move about the train has some advantages over driver-only)
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I can travel from Geneva to Bourg Saint Maurice (same journey time as Bristol to York) for £29.99.
This is not universally the case in Switzerland. Hopped on a standard bus for a 10 minute ride with the family along to some attraction or other - 31 Swiss Francs (about 25 quid, I suppose) for the return journey.
Nobody does price-gouging like the Swiss.
The repeated "div class" comment on this forum never fails to make me smile.
(not aimed at anybody, just find it funny:- first class, second class, div class)
This is not universally the case in Switzerland.
After having a £70 lunch of two burgers and a glass of wine in Verbier last summer, this isn’t a surprise. I think the majority of the train journey I referenced is in France so it’d be interesting to hear how the rest of that train network compares.
People need to get real. we’re investing more than any European country in our rail infrastructure as we catch up from decades of under investment under public ownership and it will take decades to transform and until then it will be disruptive. It would have to get a lot worse to be anywhere near as bad a British rail was.
People need to get real
What do they need to get real about? That is it a poor service and needs to improve? Seems like a well justified opinion. How long have they been trying to improve it, and are there any signs of improvement?
Wobbliescoitt - its you that needs to get real. Public subsidy to the railways has increased hugely under this grossly inefficient fake private model with huge sums being creamed off in profits.
One of the main re4asons for the rubbish service in some areas is precisely because of the stupid fake private model bringing in assett stripping and short termism
No other country in the world has a system anything like it.
Today as with lots of other days, NORTHERN cancelled lots of trains, because conductors didnt want to work weekends, add in all the redone timetables, and failed trains, and not much chance of traveling today or next week,all while london gets new trains and lines, and the dreded hs2 huge waste of money
Divvying it up so that profiteering companies can extract dividends from the better bits and the tax payer is left holding the shit bits that private enterprise won’t touch with a barge pole is not a clever way of running a public service in the long term.
Flawed statement.The Docklands Light Railway is an automated light metro system opened in 1987.
Flawed statement. Comparing the DLR to the main line rail system is hilarious.
People need to get real. we’re investing more than any European country in our rail infrastructure as we catch up from decades of under investment under public ownership and it will take decades to transform and until then it will be disruptive.
Other European countries comparable to ourselves may be decades ahead in terms of rail infrastructure, but they didn't privatise their systems in the view that private investment would solve the issues. It, along with the other privatisations of utilities has been a total failure.
South western railway which took over the franchise last year are in trouble. Almost as soon as he was appointed Secretary of State for Transport in July 2016, Chris Grayling began to push for a more direct relationship between rail operator and infrastructure, and a more ‘hands off’ approach by the DfT.
SWR who one the bid to run the services, based their profit making on running more services. They submitted their new timetable to the office of rail regulation, who shared it with Network rail, who promptly said it was not possible as the south west main line has power supply problems which mean it cannot run more trains on the lines.
The DfT may have told SWR they could run the trains, Network Rail explained in a statement, but they certainly hadn’t told Network Rail to build the required power infrastructure on the SWML. More importantly, the DfT hadn’t given them any money to do so.
Essentially, the DFT knew what SWR wanted to do, but failed to consult network rail. This hands off approach by the DFT is another in a very long line of failures when it comes to privatisation. On this occasion it wasn't SWR's fault.
5 grand a year I pay for 40 mins each way from MK to london
Id say once a week im delayed by more than 30 mins, 50% of the time im at leas 5 mins late
never get a seat on the way home
5 grand is a fairly large chunk of my salary, Its a shite state of affairs
HS2 sounds nice, but the costs are astronomical for a minimal improvement in travel time, work has already started at the stations, but house purchases are still being held up by legal appeals along the route. Especially when East-West links are so poorly served.
its nice to see some rightwing fanboys still trying to pretend that privatised rail is somehow better value
we pay about 3-4 times what we paid under nationalised rail while passenger numbers have doubled
(though this doesnt cover Osbornes re-nationalisation of Network rail a few years ago, because it wasnt profitible enough for the private sector)
to be fair Richard Branson has a lifestyle to maintain & its only fair that us plebs should make sure hes got enough money to afford a bit of R&R
Anyway… I don’t know where you lot live, but here in Northern Rail territory we bask in the glow of ruthless efficiency* the Germans would envy, and rolling stock to put Japanese Bullet Trains to shame …
It amuses me greatly when I go to London and use what, for me, is a very efficient and very cheap train system running regular 6 or 8 carriage trains, Oyster cards, air con, wifi.
And then I return to Manchester and get on a Northern Rail service. 2 carriages of rattly converted bus, heater running even in summer, probably late and you need to buy something called a ticket. Which is very expensive.
Londoners moan about their train service; it's a bloody good job most of them never experience a Northern service!
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Flawed statement.
The Docklands Light Railway is an automated light metro system opened in 1987.
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Flawed statement. Comparing the DLR to the main line rail system is hilarious.
The statement is correct, your interpretation is flawed.
The DLR has “guards” but they’re there to check payments have been correctly applied, and to service customers who require assistance. The guards aren’t there to open the doors, nor drive the trains.
The DLR maybe mono rail, but there are two flows to the tracks one upbound and one downbound on many of the lines, and the trains alight at different side of the platforms depending on which way you are travelling.
So.. pretty similar to the current rail network then.
Take the piss all you like but the statement I made is a correct one, you are just applying your own interpretation to it to suit your own needs.
Happy to help.
TFL is a nationalised integrated transport service & as crazy-legs points out, it pisses all over the the fragmented & privatised shambles of bus & rail we have in the rest of the country. Oyster card alone is brilliant.
It helps that the mayor is in charge & if it screws hed be out out of a job at the next election!
"The DLR has “guards” but they’re there to check payments have been correctly applied, and to service customers who require assistance. The guards aren’t there to open the doors, nor drive the trains."
The DLR PSAs do control the doors, you can watch this happening. They also take over direct control of the train if there's an emergency or breakdown.
The DLR was designed from the ground up for driverless operation, the national network wasn't. It's never more than minutes away from outside assistance, the national service mostly is. The differences are huge.
And yet despite all of that- it's still 100% true what I said, you'll be damn glad for them if there's ever a problem.
.When I can get to Finland cheaper than I can get from Bristol to London then something is not right
One pays fuel duty and VAT on tickets and one doesn't,maybe a contributory factor?
Londoners moan about their train service; it’s a bloody good job most of them never experience a Northern service!
^ this, so much this. I can't find it but BBC had a figure of Londonium and SE getting 2-3x the money per head per mile than north for public transport.
I actually think the train service round my way is good. Not that I use it much but when I do the trains from Skipton are usually modern, quiet, clean and on time. It's run by Northern too!!
£46k and they don’t work sundays unless its double time? Where do I sign up?
Why don't you?
If train driving is such a great career, why isn't everyone signing up for it? Is there a huge pile of applications for every job? If not, then the salary isn't too high is it?
If train driving is such a great career, why isn’t everyone signing up for it? Is there a huge pile of applications for every job?
Yep. 12700 applications for 100 jobs.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-34346101
Flawed statement.
The <b>Docklands Light Railway</b> (<b>DLR</b>) is an automated light metro system opened in 1987.
???
On the subject of HS2
if the chaos of brexshit wasnt all consuming Im sure more focus would be put on this particular shambles
its already cost more than planned (4bn before it even started)
cost overrun estimated to be 20-60% of the £57bn budgeted for the 'Tory Vanity project'
https://www.ft.com/content/a32dda78-8c01-11e8-bf9e-8771d5404543
Not sure 'investment' is the right term to use. A lot of the money spent on the rail network seems to be to patch over things rather than bring it up to a modern standard, like the cancellation fo electrification of a chunk of the northern rail network. HS2 does not really count.
Mind you, with the way our power supply is going (razor thin reserves), staying with diesel is probably a smart thing.
On the subject of HS2
if the chaos of brexshit wasnt all consuming Im sure more focus would be put on this particular shambles
its already cost more than planned (4bn before it even started)
HS2's a difficult one because it's about capacity as much as speed. Something needs to be done, the WCML is full (hence your delays from Milton Keynes; no contingency), there's a push to get more freight off the roads and passenger numbers are trending upward, as they have for about 20 years now. That all has to go somewhere. You can't make trains longer, or add more of them, as the two usual comments.
Doing piecemeal improvement on really old infrastructure isn't much better - look at the Trent Valley upgrade between Rugby and Stafford, massively over budget, cost about £8bn and didn't deliver all the promised improvements anyway. Imagine replicating that for a full line to London.
Building new lines will never be cheap because we don't have vast swathes of flat, empty land to build on.
Take the piss all you like but the statement I made is a correct one,
Trying to compare a national rail system to a small enclosed(used by no other type of rail service) system built from the ground up to be automated as Northwind says, only makes the statement you made correct in your own head.
If you want to make small comparisons try the tube system.
Yeah, have to agree with El-bent; DLR is a great example of how you can do things if you start with automation in mind, and make it a wholly hermetically sealed system which never interacts with any other traffic, and has all kinds of safeguards in place to make sure you don't get the sort of external factors which influence the national network.
I definitely think rail is prime for automation, far easier than cars (although the penalty for failure would likely be far worse), but DLR is not the example of why that is, or even how you'd do it if you automated the national rail network.
5 grand a year I pay for 40 mins each way from MK to london
Is that all. Its a 100 mile round trip so 500 miles a week. say 45 week of the year thats 22,500 miles. 25p a mile thats a bargain. Try commuting anywhere else in the uk for so little
As mentioned above by Milky 1980, we drove back from Morzine last month on lovely smooth motorways, no hold ups, everyone overtakes then goes back into the inside lane, driving at sensible speeds etc.
Get off the Eurotunnel back to the UK, the motorway is strewn with rubbish for mile upon mile, everyone driving like a d1ck, glad to be back? Not really
The only real valid comparison that you can make to an automated mainline rail system would be the Thameslink core area which has been operating using European Train Control System (ETCS) - ie. signals in the cab with Automatic Train Operation (ATO).
This 'world first' was in March this year.
The technology is ready now, but implementing it on the national network is an unprecidented project, probably the biggest thing to happen to the UK railway since it was built.
The DLR PSAs do control the doors, you can watch this happening.
Nope, rong.
You can push a little button all on your own some.
Y’a make it sound like I haven’t used the DLR.. well soz, but for 20yrs in and out of Bank to C’Wharf dear fellow.
Agree on Oyster cards being the prime ease of use, quite why they’re not accepted on ALL train services is an abomination I tell you.
And the statement I made is still true, your interpretation of it is incorrect.
So, now we’ve cleared that up..
Why haven’t we built a system like the DLR and expanded it across the rail network?
It was built from the ground up yes, but no reason why the technology couldn’t be used in the electrified lines... and yes I know about the local diesel chugabouts that go to Diidly-Cum-Fairy on a Tuesday at 10am.. but I’m not talking about those, I’m talking about mainlines..
Whats the HS2 proposal going to embed? Same driver/guards system as is in place now? If so it seems like a wasted opportunity (if it ever goes ahead)
Why haven’t we built a system like the DLR and expanded it across the rail network?
See my post above.
Why haven’t we built a system like the DLR and expanded it across the rail network?
At a guess, it's because the DLR only has one line and hence the problem is far simpler. Way more trains going way faster on the main network. See ETCS above as an example of the scale of doing things to the UK network.
As mentioned above by Milky 1980, we drove back from Morzine last month on lovely smooth motorways, no hold ups, everyone overtakes then goes back into the inside lane, driving at sensible speeds etc.Get off the Eurotunnel back to the UK, the motorway is strewn with rubbish for mile upon mile, everyone driving like a d1ck, glad to be back? Not really
I drove through Italy, Austria, Switzerland and France last week. All fine - the very few sections of motorway that had roadworks were well managed and flowing (even at 2 lanes), the lane disicpline was excellent and people seemed to drive within a much narrower range of speeds. No-one dawdling and no-one out and out speeding.
Back into the UK and within a few miles out of Eurotunnel, the M20 was down to 50mph for miles on miles of roadworks, cones everywhere. Shit lane discipline, rubbish on the hardshoulders and a range of speeds from grandma in her Ford Fiesta doing 40mph to boyracer doing 100.
Driving along one of the sections of French motorway doing 80mph (French speed limit) we were running parallel to a TGV line. One of the trains went past us like we were standing still, it must have been doing over 200mph. Compare that to driving along the M6 parallel to the WCML when a Pendolino trundles past doing 35mph more than you're doing (approx 100ish mph copmpared to a car doing 70). Bet a ticket on the Pendolino costs more too.
Nope, rong.
You can push a little button all on your own some.
(facepalm) "opening the doors" doesn't literally mean a man runs along pressing all the buttons. The doors are still manually unlocked (and closed) by a man at a control panel. He doesn't "drive" the train per se, but the doors are not controlled by the public.
and yes I know about the local diesel chugabouts that go to Diidly-Cum-Fairy on a Tuesday at 10am.. but I’m not talking about those, I’m talking about mainlines..
The closest to a dedicated line we have is HS1, and even then there's no standardisation of stock - domestic high speed services run at 140mph, whilst Channel Tunnel trains run at 186mph, but there are few stations.
On our busiest "main lines" you have stopping services, fast passenger services and all manner of freight trains. These all have vastly different speed profiles, acceleration rates, braking distances and stopping patterns. You really cannot scale up DLR unless you want every single train to move at the speed of the absolute slowest and all stop in the same places. Repeating yourself just makes you look more stupid.
So yes, a light rail system linking London and Glasgow would work, it would cost many, many billions, and give DLR has a top speed of 50mph it would take 8 hours to get to Glasgow assuming no intermediate stops. Tough sell that one.
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You can push a little button all on your own some.
And if the PSA hasn't unlocked it, nothing will happen.
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Crazy that the Thameslink core is a world's first, when Victoria line was "fully" automated from the start. Where fully automated means the driver isn't a driver but merely pushes 2 buttons to engage automatic mode and 2 buttons to enable the door opening/closing. All other deep bore (apart from Picadilly?) have it, as does Glasgow. DLR was probably just Thatcher dropping a hint to the unions, just to let them know what the future holds. Clearly RMT/ASLEF can play the safety card over and over and over as evidenced by Thameslink, Southern, SWR, Northern,...
Those fully automated first batch of DLR trains were eventually shipped back to Germany, where they had driving cabs added and were refurbed to become normal street trams. Which I thought ironic when Germany also recently announced their first fully automated train system.