I always reserve a seat with a window view, table and sitting backwards.
I have had days where you get back into the country and take a random train to get home, stood up for a while etc give
an old lady my seat.

For safety they need more seats and not the Japanese small cramped ones.

Can I just remind those people calling for renationalisation of the railways quite how bad it was under British Rail?

Perhaps but it’s false logic to assume that this improvement is down to privatisation. London transport has also experienced enormous improvements over the last few years, but it isn’t privatised. Things, public and private, in general, have moved on.

19 comments in before somebody (bearnecessities) said something sensible.
I couldn’t agree more with the OP and the fawning, rule-following, please-treat-us-like-crap British public.
As for the guard-was-only-doing-his-job brigade… 🙄

the fawning, rule-following, please-treat-us-like-crap British public

The British have a deep need for a strict nanny. Yesterday’s events showed that as clearly as can be imagined. “Austerity? Oh yes please, thank you nanny!”

Train companies do seem to be messed up, just one example: Engineering works near me at the moment so about 50% of the services aren’t running, fair enough line upgrades I’m happy with that as long as the interim measures are properly thought out. Lots of rail replacement buses in use, I was there the other day.
“Would you like to take the replacement bus sir? It’s almost empty, the train may be too busy to get on”
“Er maybe, how long does the bus take?”
“we don’t know”
excellent!
“Well, I’ll see if I can get on the train and if I can’t I’ll come and get the bus”
“sorry sir the bus leaves before the train”
So it wouldn’t have been a better idea for the empty bus to wait to pick up the people unable to get on the train?
idiots.

Took a chance on the train, now bearing in mind 50% of the services aren’t running and there’s a lot of spare carriages around not doing anything so when the train turns up do you think it’s a bigger than usual service or the bare minimum, packed to the rafters, 3 coacher?
Go on guess…

Perhaps but it’s false logic to assume that this improvement is down to privatisation. London transport has also experienced enormous improvements over the last few years, but it isn’t privatised. Things, public and private, in general, have moved on.

I’d agree with that, I just find it odd that people hark back to BR when it was so bad under them.

[quote]Can I just remind those people calling for renationalisation of the railways quite how bad it was under British Rail? I’ve spent far too much time on trains before and since privatisation and there is no contest.[/quote]
Can I just remind you how underfunded BR was? the argument is that the state cannot run railways but the really well run German and French state run services contradict that. They are so well run in fact that both Deutches Bahn and SNCF have shares in some UK services with the profit from those services being used to subsidise rail services in their home markets. Bet that gives you a nice warm feeling, eh?

njee20 said – blah blah blah pompous twaddle

I can’t help wondering if the phrase ‘sticking it to the man’ will gain a wholly more literal meaning over the coming 5 years
I guess it depends to what extent further degradations are handed down by the ‘haves’ to the ‘have nots’

Every time I’ve ever asked if I’m ok to just sit in first if the train is rammed has been greeted with a positive response. That’s on London midland, midland mainline or first great western. The only time I’ve ever been refused was because first was also rammed. I sometimes just sit on the floor.
As previously said your ticket gets you on the train not a seat. Same as most busses.

I blew up.

suicide bomber!

On health, safety and welfare grounds available 1st class seats should be opened up to standing passengers on the understanding that they will be given up to 1st class ticket holders as required, however it can’t be allowed to become a free-for-all decided by passengers

What are the H&S risks? What if you’ve put everyone into 1st, then the train is in a collision with the 1st coach leading?

There’s not really any risk around having people standing, people sitting aren’t restrained in any way. In the event of a crash you’re gonna be flung around all over the place, whether you started upright or sat isn’t really relevant.

If it was a genuine risk then they would work like the airlines – seating capacity exhausted then you’re on the next train. Imagine the uproar!

If it’s truly so offensive there are other options
– get an earlier train
– get a later train
– don’t use the train, use another form of transport
– change your job
– move closer

I’m not saying it’s a great situation, but more carriages doesn’t always work (space on platforms etc), nor does more trains (safety, demand, capacity), as the prices would have to go up to fund it

‘Lost it on the train tonight’. Lost what? Your bottle?

National Rail Conditions of Carriage:
39. Travelling in first class accommodation with a standard class ticket
If you have a standard class ticket (other than a Season Ticket), no standard class
accommodation is available, and staff on that train give their permission, then you may
travel in first class accommodation (or the equivalent) where this is available without extra
charge.

So you can use First Class at staff discretion.

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I was a train conductor and someone asked me nicely, “look, the train is full and it’s a long journey, First Class is almost empty, can I sit here please” then I’d have said “fill your boots sir, terribly sorry for the inconvenience, may I get you a coffee?”

On the other hand, if someone intent on “making a stand” stomped up to me full of self-importance and visibly close to “losing it” and started making demands, backed up by a small army of passengers he’d whipped up beforehand in order to fill First Class and then some, I’d be doing everything I could to ensure that the remainder of his journey was taken sitting on the train’s roof.

Seriously, did you really expect you and forty of your closest friends to all get a free first class upgrade and to hell with those who’d already paid what was probably a three figure sum on top of their fare precisely to get away from shouty commuters?

Can I just remind those people calling for renationalisation of the railways quite how bad it was under British Rail? I’ve spent far too much time on trains before and since privatisation and there is no contest.

Yes, thanks to the very large injection of public money to improve re-nationalised infrastructure, and the re-nationalisation of failing train operators.

I’d remove ALL seats & replace with bean bags.
Be much more chilled out.

I always reserve a seat with a window view, table and sitting backwards.

[/b]
But that’s the sicky direction!

Get yourself pregnant then you can use 1st class for free! 🙂

(After you’ve stood up in cattle class for the first 4 months that is!)

Should have stuck to your guns & gone out like this guy…

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsfVnr1_eGI[/video]

Get yourself pregnant then you can use 1st class for free!

Under the new Conservative government, expect to pay two fares for two people.

MynameisBenEltongoodnight.

When trains had locos on the front instead of truck engines strung underneath coaches, me and another cyclist walked to guards van at front of train behind loco, some trains had guards vans both ends for some reason, found doors locked so we put the bikes in the rear cab of loco and took a seat each, a few hours latter arrived at major station, much annoyannce from train driver and other official people,as we unloaded bikes out of cab, we just cycled off down platform being chased by fat train staff,

as said above,many train operating companies are owned by german dutch and french nationalised rail companies who are propped up by the british tax payer to the tune of millions a year..
Since the cost of running the railways cannot be met by passenger fares alone, the government pays billions of pounds in subsidy to the train operating companies. However, much of this public subsidy doesn’t even reach the railways, but goes straight to shareholders. For example, between 1997 and 2012 on the West Coast Mainline, Virgin Trains paid out a total of £500 million in dividends, having received a direct subsidy of £2.5 billion.
lots more here

Southern RPI’s can be scum.

Last year on a really hot day a heavily pregnant and stressed looking woman got on the train with her partner. It was packed/standing room only and no F~ckers would get up and give her a seat. So she waddled down to first class and plonked herself down with her partner.

RPI walks through checking tickets and comes to couple. She has a right go about there being seats further along the train, (not in the next carriage as I’d walked through it trying to find a space). The partner explains that his wife is pregnant, stressed and needed to sit down in a hurry but the snotty nosed RPI bitch was having none of it and just carried on even when other passengers started to side with the couple.

Turfed them both off at East Croydon and fined them both.

Not Southerns finest hour.

project – Member

When trains had locos on the front instead of truck engines strung underneath coaches, me and another cyclist walked to guards van at front of train behind loco, some trains had guards vans both ends for some reason, found doors locked so we put the bikes in the rear cab of loco and took a seat each, a few hours latter arrived at major station, much annoyannce from train driver and other official people,as we unloaded bikes out of cab, we just cycled off down platform being chased by fat train staff
You have an awesome imagination, have you ever considered writing children’s books?

Virgin are currently striping out the first class in trainets, 1 coach per set and converting to second class, eg more seats and airline and bay seating, other TOC,s are following.

[video]http://youtu.be/GdB9Y5GREB8[/video]

Virgin are currently striping out the first class in trainets, 1 coach per set and converting to second class, eg more seats and airline and bay seating, other TOC,s are following.

Not wholly unreasonable – when the Pendolinos were delivered 4/9 coaches were first class (up from 2.5/8 on the outgoing mk2/mk3 stock, which is massively disproportionate. Admittedly now it’s 4/11, but it’s still a lot.

FGW have gone down to 1-1.5/8 down from 2.5 previously.

There are two sorts of people here.

Those blindly ignorant to the present, piss poor levels, largely caused on Southern and South Eastern, due to the London Bridge Closure, and how the service is visibly crumbling before our eyes, and those who don’t/can’t imagine either how infuriatingly shit its become, despite becoming so expensive.

There was one idiot, with a list of 5 options that included
1 – get an earlier train – Well, they’re packed too, and actually, the earlier service that I used to get was cancelled. It’s the one before that thats packed. The “earlier” train is no longer in the timetable.
2- Get a later train. I can’t unless I am late for work. I’ve asked work about changing my hours, they refused.
3- Change job. ABit extreme for a shit journey. Why should I have to change my job. Besides, there are few jobs doing what I do round here anymore, they all got sent to India or The North West.
4 – Move. Why – because the service has got rubbish, I need to uproot family, friends, and go to that kind of expense and move closer to London? Can’t afford it due to house prices anyway.
5- Use another form of transport. – Just not practical on my relocated route to work. Bus out of question, the routes too long/difficult., car will take too long, parking impossible the other end and is scarcely “green” in itself, and now too far to cycle comfortably,

Was a truly thoughtless response really.

The chap who mentioned the pregnant wife has got the Revenue Protection Inspectors(as opposed to the usual “Guards” who can occasionally, on some railways, but not often on Southern), are just total shits. They will wait, in a packed carriage, undercover, until the train has moved off, before fining people who are sitting in otherwise empty spaces when the rest of the carriage is packed to the rafters.

I really have come to loath the railways over the last few months. And so much of it is down to poor planning. Every day, trains rattle through my station to “make up time” without stopping, (forgetting their job is to collect passengers, rather than trying to arrive less than 30m late to avoid having to pay compensation, which has its own impossible conditions attached), daily cancelled services, and ones which just temininate abuptly or just sit, ensuring connections are missed.

Frankly, they are such a rip off, failing to deliver for the over inflationary price rises, and we are not “customers”, we are simply “fodder”. Anyother genuine competitive industry couldn’t get away with treating its customers like the rail companies do, thats why we mention aircraft. Air – No seat – first class upgrade. Rail – stand in the piss stinking swamp of the contortionists toilet or be fined if you want that chair, exactly like all the others, but with an antimacassar on the headrest and a 1 decal in the window.

The air analogy of “no seat – upgrade” is a complete irrelevance, as has been said many times, because you don’t buy a seat on a train, you buy a conveyance from a to b.

If your train doesn’t stop at your station then you’re presumably delayed. If this is by more than 30 minutes you can receive compensation. Simple. I’ve done this whilst wandering up the platform – take photo of ticket on phone, upload via web page.

I live on the Southern TOC, and have spent several years commuting into London. The number of times when it’s been really really truly **** are two. On one of those days I got to the station, and went home. The other I went on SWT to Guildford and got a lift instead.

In neither instance was it the fault of Southern.

They often don’t shower themselves in glory, but they’re not that bad IMO.

Air – No seat – first class upgrade.

So very wrong.

If we can carry that analogy forward though… I usually get the 07.35 Billingshurt – London Bridge. Formed of 12 coaches, so as long as it can be.

This has come from Bognor. There is plnety of room at Billi, no issues. At Christ’s Hospital a few folk get on. At Horsham it’s virtually full. By Littlehaven you’re standing room only. Ok, we’ll upgrade some of them to first. There are about 60 first class seats, of which maybe 30 are available. Ok. Train is now full. No more passengers.

You’ve still got Ifield, Crawley, Three Bridges and East Croydon where no one can get on because you’ve upgraded everyone to their first class seats. In fact, if you employed this logic I’m fairly sure no one would ever leave East Croydon, and that’s a hellish punishment. It’s a truly dismal place. Horrendous.

See Even 4 years ago, I would have agreed. But certainly since December, it’s become shocking. I am traveling in from Redhill. I only thank God I don’t have to use a lesser station up or down my line, (Earlswood, Salfords, Merstham)they get it worse that we do.

The latest trick is “short trains”. Yesterday was 8 carriages instead of 12. Day before, they’d cancelled a previous service so you had several stations worth of travelers backing up – I say cancelled, well, they just chose to make it run fast, so it hurtled through several stations to East Croydon without picking anyone up.
One day last week we had a 4 car instead of 12. With broken toilets. Like traveling German Railways to Auchwitz circa 1944.

Of course, if you say it’s never this bad, despite clearly no longer traveling, I must be making it up, and so are all the local papers and even occasionally national news too and you have correctly called me out as a liar. Or you could be wrong, but with your attitude of blind denial, you should work as a revenue protection inspector, you’d pass the aptitude test with flying colours.

To be honest, the Op’s point has got lost. Basically, treat people like shit – don’t be surprised when they complain. Force them into over heated, packed carriages, stress them by being late/delayed, whilst price gouging them relentlessly, treat reasonable requests with arrogance and ignorance, behave as if believe most of your customers are criminals and then wonder why they snap.

One day last week we had a 4 car instead of 12. With broken toilets. Like traveling German Railways to Auchwitz circa 1944.

LITERALLY EQUIVALENT TO HITLER

One day last week we had a 4 car instead of 12. With broken toilets. Like traveling German Railways to Auchwitz circa 1944.

I’ve seen some tasteless posts on this site but that ^^ takes the biscuit.

I’m sure it was EXACTLY THE SAME, except you weren’t murdered at the destination.

Of course, if you say it’s never this bad, despite clearly no longer traveling, I must be making it up, and so are all the local papers and even occasionally national news too and you have correctly called me out as a liar. Or you could be wrong, but with your attitude of blind denial, you should work as a revenue protection inspector, you’d pass the aptitude test with flying colours.

Here are your toys, want to keep them back in your pram? I didn’t say you’re wrong, nor that you’re a liar, please find where I have? I have merely offered my experience as an alternative.

But yes, they are actually Nazis, that’s a really good comparison. 🙄

I’ve seen some tasteless posts on this site but that ^^ takes the biscuit.

Indeed. Astonishingly awful.

Erm, you weren’t taking a stand if you were sitting down. 😉

The air analogy of “no seat – upgrade” is a complete irrelevance, as has been said many times, because you don’t buy a seat on a train, you buy a conveyance from a to b.

Why not tear out all the seats then, problem solved?

Why not tear out all the seats then, problem solved?

That would at least be honest, giving the “customers” an accurate perception of how they are viewed by the train companies. Some straw on the floor would complete the job.

I was sat in first class to Glasgow. An old chap quietly complained that I probably shouldnt be there. It was bloody obvious. The guard glanced and walked off the opposite way. Thank **** the guard was switched on and the old bloke a busy-body elitist snob.