[Travel] Trains shitshow - next STRIKE - October 8th (Spurs)??

[beorhthelm]

And it's by far the easiest bit. You get as many trains as possible to run with as many carriages as possible between Brighton & Lewes from 12.30 to 2.30 and from 16.30 to 18.30. There's ample turnaround capability at both ends, easy peasy.

trainspotters on here have pointed out there is limited signalling along the line, daft platform length at Lewes and regular service to fit in. they can turn trains around east of Lewes but presumably a bit of a ballache, so run 8 cars to Seaford and Eastbourne. need somewhere to park them either side the peak, and extra staff (driver and OBS). think they do this on occasions, when no one on strike, no signal problems, spare carriages without faults available, and get about 6 an hour through.

 

[Sirnormangall]

Were you travelling east ?

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Yes - I don’t live that far from the stadium so it would be very frustrating if park and ride didn’t work well.

 

[BNthree]

It’s been built over


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There’s a multi-storey car park built on where the barracks was though so surprised that isn’t being used already.


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[pure_white]

I keep hearing all the train issues are not Albion's fault. Who wanted ground built at Falmer with huge reliance on train transport? Part of the ticket we purchase for the Amex stadium includes the train travel. Still nothing to do with the club?

 

[el punal]

I keep hearing all the train issues are not Albion's fault. Who wanted ground built at Falmer with huge reliance on train transport? Part of the ticket we purchase for the Amex stadium includes the train travel. Still nothing to do with the club?

Are you for real? I suggest that you read up the history of the club and its endeavours to try and find a new home before you make disparaging comments. Unless of course you are on some sort of wind up in which case I’ve been hooked.

 

[BN41Albion]

I keep hearing all the train issues are not Albion's fault. Who wanted ground built at Falmer with huge reliance on train transport? Part of the ticket we purchase for the Amex stadium includes the train travel. Still nothing to do with the club?

Pretty certain the club didn't actively 'want' a ground with huge train reliance ffs

 

[Stat Brother]

Are you for real?

No he isn't, making the rest of your post obsolete.

 

[el punal]

No he isn't, making the rest of your post obsolete.

Oh well. That’s a couple of minutes of my life I won’t get back.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

I keep hearing all the train issues are not Albion's fault. Who wanted ground built at Falmer with huge reliance on train transport? Part of the ticket we purchase for the Amex stadium includes the train travel. Still nothing to do with the club?

We really need to go back to Withdean. Getting my crayons out now to make some BANNERS.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Trains have always been shit, regardless of who is trying to run the country

Hmmmm....the unavoidable bottleneck in the London suburbs aside, my recollection of the slam door era was good. My commute from Faversham to London 30 years ago was decent. Always got a seat. Toilets shabby but always open. Ticket price structure simple and not especially expensive.

The privatised trains on the other hand are slower (10 minutes on the timetabled journey), uncomfortable (narrow armless seats in cattle class), brittle (a puff of wind or a millimeter of snow halts the service), and expensive. Plus the toilets are frequently locked, with none available on occasions (sometimes for weeks). And of course you need to have a smart person in the ticket office if you want to buy the cheapest ticket:

Are you travelling before 9, between 9 and 10 or after 10?
Is that with or without high speed?
Single or return?
What time are you coming back? (this is a very silly question because it doesn't matter on my line - when you leave dictates cost).
Any concession cards?
First class you say?

Turns out my best ticket when travelling before 10 is an ordinary single (my senior railcard gives no discount when travelling at this time), and a first class 'super' off-peak return with the senior railcard discount, with ho high speed option. This is not the default. The default is the ordinary peak time return which is £20 more expensive. Not a lot of people know this (including most of the ticket office staff). I have spent quite some time arguing the toss with those who don't, and who can't follow my instructions. A five minute job (that should be a 30 second job).

No, the rail system in the UK is far worse than it used to be in every respect apart from the air conditioning. If that's working....

 

[Gwylan]

Hmmmm....the unavoidable bottleneck in the London suburbs aside, my recollection of the slam door era was good. My commute from Faversham to London 30 years ago was decent. Always got a seat. Toilets shabby but always open. Ticket price structure simple and not especially expensive.

....

Yep,.in my experience, most people who talk about how poor British Rail was don't remember it. Like you, I was a regular commuter throughout the 80s and the trains were much, much more punctual than they are now. On my last month of commuting (in 2014), there was a delay on every single day between London and Brighton - sometimes the morning, sometimes the evening, sometimes both. It quite regularly took me three to four hours. And the trains were more comfortable then too. And you're not wrong about prices, train fares have gone up well above the inflation rate.

However, it must be said that catering has improved a hundred-fold. I do wonder whether people who talk about how poor British Rail was, are thinking solely of sandwiches

 

[beorhthelm]

...

Turns out my best ticket when travelling before 10 is an ordinary single (my senior railcard gives no discount when travelling at this time), and a first class 'super' off-peak return with the senior railcard discount, with ho high speed option. This is not the default. The default is the ordinary peak time return which is £20 more expensive. Not a lot of people know this (including most of the ticket office staff). I have spent quite some time arguing the toss with those who don't, and who can't follow my instructions. A five minute job (that should be a 30 second job).

irony of complex ticket options is they come from the regulator insistance to provide a % of affordable discount options, and to encourage more travel off-peak. we then complain about them.

 

[Deleted member 37369]

Hmmmm....the unavoidable bottleneck in the London suburbs aside, my recollection of the slam door era was good. My commute from Faversham to London 30 years ago was decent. Always got a seat. Toilets shabby but always open. Ticket price structure simple and not especially expensive.

The privatised trains on the other hand are slower (10 minutes on the timetabled journey), uncomfortable (narrow armless seats in cattle class), brittle (a puff of wind or a millimeter of snow halts the service), and expensive. Plus the toilets are frequently locked, with none available on occasions (sometimes for weeks). And of course you need to have a smart person in the ticket office if you want to buy the cheapest ticket:

Are you travelling before 9, between 9 and 10 or after 10?
Is that with or without high speed?
Single or return?
What time are you coming back? (this is a very silly question because it doesn't matter on my line - when you leave dictates cost).
Any concession cards?
First class you say?

Turns out my best ticket when travelling before 10 is an ordinary single (my senior railcard gives no discount when travelling at this time), and a first class 'super' off-peak return with the senior railcard discount, with ho high speed option. This is not the default. The default is the ordinary peak time return which is £20 more expensive. Not a lot of people know this (including most of the ticket office staff). I have spent quite some time arguing the toss with those who don't, and who can't follow my instructions. A five minute job (that should be a 30 second job).

No, the rail system in the UK is far worse than it used to be in every respect apart from the air conditioning. If that's working....

The whole pricing of tickets - to get the best deal for the journey for the passenger - is certainly a shitshow!

I thought they were supposed to be making it simpler to get the cheapest ticket ... well that's not happened!

I have one of the Keycards ... or whatever they're called ... where you tap in and out and then at the end of the day it works out the best deal for you. Worked fine until recently and I've ended up having to keep emailing the team to get a refund! "There's a software fix going in which will fix it" they told me. D'oh ... no it didn't!!

Sometimes to avoid the pain of getting a refund I've used Trainline to get my ticket at the right price. The only problem there is that if I try and scan the code to get through the barrier at 9am for a 9.06am train (which is off peak), it won't let me through and if I'm on the opposite side to where they have the chap manning the gates I have to press the buzzer and explain I have a ticket but the gate won't let me through. This is at a time when all trains going through Shoreham at that time are off peak! Apparently the gates are set centrally and all the local stations will be set for the same time - even if that causes issues like I've experienced at Shoreham!!

Third world problems I know ... but why do they have to make life so bloody difficult!!!

 

[Herr Ing Gull]

I know,crazy isn`t it !

I wonder what the group of Japanese lads thought of our wonderful trains

If they've ever been on a Japanese rush hour train (I'm sure they will have), they were probably wondering why the trains were half full

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[CheeseRolls]

irony of complex ticket options is they come from the regulator insistance to provide a % of affordable discount options, and to encourage more travel off-peak. we then complain about them.

Conveniently ignoring the franchise mess, which was supposed to bring competition to this space and has just added cost. Can you find a single example of the 80s driven privatisation wave, which has added any long term value to this country? The railways STILL require subsidy and the service has deteriorated massively. The water companies have over extracted water and profits and returned massive leakage and sewage dumping. Energy is a mess. What does that leave BT and the post office?

You can be pro-capitalism and for the record I am, whilst opposing virtual monopolies, which operate at the public expense.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Hmmmm....the unavoidable bottleneck in the London suburbs aside, my recollection of the slam door era was good. My commute from Faversham to London 30 years ago was decent. Always got a seat. Toilets shabby but always open. Ticket price structure simple and not especially expensive.

The privatised trains on the other hand are slower (10 minutes on the timetabled journey), uncomfortable (narrow armless seats in cattle class), brittle (a puff of wind or a millimeter of snow halts the service), and expensive. Plus the toilets are frequently locked, with none available on occasions (sometimes for weeks). And of course you need to have a smart person in the ticket office if you want to buy the cheapest ticket:

Are you travelling before 9, between 9 and 10 or after 10?
Is that with or without high speed?
Single or return?
What time are you coming back? (this is a very silly question because it doesn't matter on my line - when you leave dictates cost).
Any concession cards?
First class you say?

Turns out my best ticket when travelling before 10 is an ordinary single (my senior railcard gives no discount when travelling at this time), and a first class 'super' off-peak return with the senior railcard discount, with ho high speed option. This is not the default. The default is the ordinary peak time return which is £20 more expensive. Not a lot of people know this (including most of the ticket office staff). I have spent quite some time arguing the toss with those who don't, and who can't follow my instructions. A five minute job (that should be a 30 second job).

No, the rail system in the UK is far worse than it used to be in every respect apart from the air conditioning. If that's working....

Not really comparing like with like though. Rail passenger numbers have increased enormously since the 1980s and all these extra users are willing to pay these high prices. I guess a lot of people have joined you as commuters. Perhaps it’s just difficult to manage the increase without building new railways and that’s not really possible.

https://www.statista.com/statistics...-passenger-journeys-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

 

[beorhthelm]

Conveniently ignoring the franchise mess, which was supposed to bring competition to this space and has just added cost.

nothing more said than the silliness of tickets. franchiese are a mess too, not relevant to the point. fwiw we did see competition on Brighton-London, Thameslink offered cheaper fast trains, people complained about that too. put the whole lot on the same footing as Network Rail, see if that changes anything (it wont, most the delays are from engineering, signalling or industrial action).

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Hmmmm....the unavoidable bottleneck in the London suburbs aside, my recollection of the slam door era was good. My commute from Faversham to London 30 years ago was decent. Always got a seat. Toilets shabby but always open. Ticket price structure simple and not especially expensive.

The privatised trains on the other hand are slower (10 minutes on the timetabled journey), uncomfortable (narrow armless seats in cattle class), brittle (a puff of wind or a millimeter of snow halts the service), and expensive. Plus the toilets are frequently locked, with none available on occasions (sometimes for weeks). And of course you need to have a smart person in the ticket office if you want to buy the cheapest ticket:

Are you travelling before 9, between 9 and 10 or after 10?
Is that with or without high speed?
Single or return?
What time are you coming back? (this is a very silly question because it doesn't matter on my line - when you leave dictates cost).
Any concession cards?
First class you say?

Turns out my best ticket when travelling before 10 is an ordinary single (my senior railcard gives no discount when travelling at this time), and a first class 'super' off-peak return with the senior railcard discount, with ho high speed option. This is not the default. The default is the ordinary peak time return which is £20 more expensive. Not a lot of people know this (including most of the ticket office staff). I have spent quite some time arguing the toss with those who don't, and who can't follow my instructions. A five minute job (that should be a 30 second job).

No, the rail system in the UK is far worse than it used to be in every respect apart from the air conditioning. If that's working....

Also recall some absolute nightmare elfin safety incidents at London Bridge with commuters trying to board a moving slam door train

 

[el punal]

However, it must be said that catering has improved a hundred-fold. I do wonder whether people who talk about how poor British Rail was, are thinking solely of sandwiches

Ah, the delights of British Rail catering! I remember getting a cheese sandwich at Brighton station buffet - roughly where M&S is now - from their glass display cabinet. Magnificent, curled up stale white bread and the cheese - sweaty and rubbery like a fat man’s flip flops.

The station toilets, which were underground, were I’m sure run by Porton Down. The smell alone would have overcome any invading army.

On the bright side, nothing, absolutely nothing, could match the wonderful breakfast that was offered on the old Brighton Belle.

 

[Stat Brother]

Oh well. That’s a couple of minutes of my life I won’t get back.

Consider yourself lucky I've lost over 20 years, to this festering pit of vipers!