[Technology] Victorian train companies

[pastafarian]

Wouldn’t happen in Germany.

Christ hope not, last thing you need in Germany nowadays is a white female penniless and stranded in the vicinity of a rail station.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Christ hope not, last thing you need in Germany nowadays is a white female penniless and stranded in the vicinity of a rail station.

A minute or so on a smart phone and she’ll be on her way.....on time and in comfort at a fraction of the price.

 

[happypig]

A minute or so on a smart phone and she’ll be on her way.....on time and in comfort.

I read an interview a while back with a feller who ran SBB, Switzerland's train company; he said "If the timetable shows the train will arrive at 3PM, and the clock shows 3PM and the train isn't here then it's either not a Swiss train or not a Swiss clock".
He said that late trains were almost unheard of, a handful a year at most and cancelled trains were even rarer. He found it inconceivable that British trains didn't run on time.

We should get people like him in to run SASTA and throw useless twats like Charles Horton in the nearest river.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I read an interview a while back with a feller who ran SBB, Switzerland's train company; he said "If the timetable shows the train will arrive at 3PM, and the clock shows 3PM and the train isn't here then it's either not a Swiss train or not a Swiss clock".
He said that late trains were almost unheard of, a handful a year at most and cancelled trains were even rarer. He found it inconceivable that British trains didn't run on time.

We should get people like him in to run SASTA and throw useless twats like Charles Horton in the nearest river.

It’s a very very different culture that’s for sure. Aside from the obvious things like punctuality and price, there are numerous other elements which make it better. DB is fully integrated with local public transport, ticketing across the entire network is simple, no barriers, staff are knowledgeable, it’s a pleasant and comfortable experience. The other thing I like is platforms are part of the timetable, when new timetables come out you’re told the platform as well as the time. In the U.K. they often can’t tell you the platform 10 minutes before the train arrives let alone 6 months. I spoke to someone about this, and he said that the same journeys have been running for decades....so why wouldn’t they know which platform?

 

[boik]

I read an interview a while back with a feller who ran SBB, Switzerland's train company; he said "If the timetable shows the train will arrive at 3PM, and the clock shows 3PM and the train isn't here then it's either not a Swiss train or not a Swiss clock".
He said that late trains were almost unheard of, a handful a year at most and cancelled trains were even rarer. He found it inconceivable that British trains didn't run on time.

We should get people like him in to run SASTA and throw useless twats like Charles Horton in the nearest river.

Not saying our railways are great, but surely passenger numbers in Switzerland are tiny compared to the uk?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Not saying our railways are great, but surely passenger numbers in Switzerland are tiny compared to the uk?

Oi, this doesn’t fit with my agenda, please keep to the script.

 

[father_and_son]

It’s a very very different culture that’s for sure. Aside from the obvious things like punctuality and price, there are numerous other elements which make it better. DB is fully integrated with local public transport, ticketing across the entire network is simple, no barriers, staff are knowledgeable, it’s a pleasant and comfortable experience. The other thing I like is platforms are part of the timetable, when new timetables come out you’re told the platform as well as the time. In the U.K. they often can’t tell you the platform 10 minutes before the train arrives let alone 6 months. I spoke to someone about this, and he said that the same journeys have been running for decades....so why wouldn’t they know which platform?

The key to the Swizz system is consistency though. If there is a train due at 15mins past and 45mins past the hour, it means there are trains at 15 and 45mins past *every* hour. And if the other line has trains due at xx:30 and xx:00 *every* hour, the use of platforms, points, junctions, etc is consistent all day, every day. You can tell someone what platform to stand on and when the train is due because it is always that platform at that time. (and staff only need to learn a one hour sequence and just repeat it all day, they don't need to look it up on a scappy piece of paper, radio a mate or tell you to watch the boards when you ask a question.... they just know!)


Simplicity brings Consistency. Consistency brings Reliability.


If someone has to decide whether to bring a train into platform 1, 2 or 3 each and every time there is a train and when there is a train, there may or may not be another train 1 minute before or 1 minute after, points need to be changed, passengers directed and re-directed from clogged concourses, then of course, mistakes happen, problems happen, delays happen.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Because it's a waste of my time. From my first conversation with LNER to checking with my daughter that she has the ticket took the best part of three hours. If she'd come back by coach, I could have booked a ticket with National Express and have it sent to her mobile in a couple of minutes. The fact that the clerk was really helpful doesn't disguise that the ticketing system is bloody awful.

Rail companies aren't alone in this. I've got to spend time with Virgin Mobile this afternoon to activate a new SIM, something else that should be possible without too much hassle. The last phone call I had with them took 40 minutes, it's no wonder that the UK is so unproductive.

Rant over

Why didn’t you call your bank explain the issue and they set up a payment from a cash point using a code your daughter is sent. All done in a few minutes and then she’d have had cash for her ticket and maybe some for food. Just thinking aloud

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

The key to the Swizz system is consistency though. If there is a train due at 15mins past and 45mins past the hour, it means there are trains at 15 and 45mins past *every* hour. And if the other line has trains due at xx:30 and xx:00 *every* hour, the use of platforms, points, junctions, etc is consistent all day, every day. You can tell someone what platform to stand on and when the train is due because it is always that platform at that time. (and staff only need to learn a one hour sequence and just repeat it all day, they don't need to look it up on a scappy piece of paper, radio a mate or tell you to watch the boards when you ask a question.... they just know!)


Simplicity brings Consistency. Consistency brings Reliability.


If someone has to decide whether to bring a train into platform 1, 2 or 3 each and every time there is a train and when there is a train, there may or may not be another train 1 minute before or 1 minute after, points need to be changed, passengers directed and re-directed from clogged concourses, then of course, mistakes happen, problems happen, delays happen.

Exactly.

 

[boik]

Oi, this doesn’t fit with my agenda, please keep to the script.

Just checked - UK has the 5th busiest rail network in the world (23rd biggest population). 60% more services than Switzerland, 50% more stations.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

If the railways tried to implement something like this they would probably a) **** it up b) take years to do it c) have staff striking at the possible job losses, changes in working practices etc and d) fail to train staff to deal with/recognise the tickets

Its always the way with monopolies. Private monopolies are worse than state because they fake a competitive landscape, using a fake approach to deal with fake issues. Multiple ticket types are there to encourage more users at off peak times, for instance. So you get into rediculous wrangles about when the lower fairs start (is it on the basis of whether the train arrives in London before 10, or is it based on when the train leaves Faversham?). Timetables are revised every few years to squeeze a bit more money out of the system by reducing the number of trains and staff.

And its getting shitter and shitter. If I need to be in my office or a lecture theatre by 9.00 I now have to get up at 5.00 in order to get the 6.18, which arrives in Victoria at 7.30. No later train gets me to Victoria in time to get to work. The 7.13 arrives at 8.29, but is regularly late, and I can't breeze into a lecture theatre with 200 students waiting, ten minutes late. Also this journey is timetabled to take an hour and 26 minutes. When I first moved to Faversham in 1989, there were two 'fast' trains an hour, each with a brake van where I could stow my mountain bike. The journey was timetabled to take an hour and five minutes, and typically was no more than 5 minutes late. I remember once oversleeping and still getting a train at 7.35 and being in the lecture theatre bang on 9.00. Why has my journey been timetabled to take 20 minutes longer now than when we had slam door trains? Easy answer - to make it harder for trains to be officially late (triggering refunds).

Add to that the 'no working toilet' issue, the freeloaders in first class, .... such joy to go to work....

 

[zefarelly]

Regardless of scale, it is still essentially an archaic Victorian network which is under funded, poorly managed and operated.

Just checked - UK has the 5th busiest rail network in the world (23rd biggest population). 60% more services than Switzerland, 50% more stations.

 

[dazzer6666]

Its always the way with monopolies. Private monopolies are worse than state because they fake a competitive landscape, using a fake approach to deal with fake issues. Multiple ticket types are there to encourage more users at off peak times, for instance. So you get into rediculous wrangles about when the lower fairs start (is it on the basis of whether the train arrives in London before 10, or is it based on when the train leaves Faversham?). Timetables are revised every few years to squeeze a bit more money out of the system by reducing the number of trains and staff.

And its getting shitter and shitter. If I need to be in my office or a lecture theatre by 9.00 I now have to get up at 5.00 in order to get the 6.18, which arrives in Victoria at 7.30. No later train gets me to Victoria in time to get to work. The 7.13 arrives at 8.29, but is regularly late, and I can't breeze into a lecture theatre with 200 students waiting, ten minutes late. Also this journey is timetabled to take an hour and 26 minutes. When I first moved to Faversham in 1989, there were two 'fast' trains an hour, each with a brake van where I could stow my mountain bike. The journey was timetabled to take an hour and five minutes, and typically was no more than 5 minutes late. I remember once oversleeping and still getting a train at 7.35 and being in the lecture theatre bang on 9.00. Why has my journey been timetabled to take 20 minutes longer now than when we had slam door trains? Easy answer - to make it harder for trains to be officially late (triggering refunds).

Add to that the 'no working toilet' issue, the freeloaders in first class, .... such joy to go to work....

Yep, it's awful. The last year or so has been worse than the slam-door era for me (I stated commuting in the early 90s) - even taking into account the main strike periods and the occasional catastrophic delay we'd get through things like lineside fires etc. Passenger numbers must be hugely increased from around here - when I first started commuting from my current station there were literally max half a dozen of us catching the 6.04, now the platform is almost 'fully lined' at the same time but the number of trains hasn't increased, the number of cancellations are at least equal if not more, the frequency trains are 'short' is no better and the journey often takes longer as you say.....................and it's £50/day. In the last few months the return journey from London Bridge, since the new 'through' routes from the North/East were opened up, has been horrendous - at least previously the trains I caught home started at London Bridge so they were a) usually there and b) not already full when they arrived.

 

[father_and_son]

Stranded Individual Location Known apparently (from searching rail forums)

Does that mean someone could be SLiNKY?.. Stranded, Location Not Known Yet.

 

[Gwylan]

Best I could do at short notice [emoji23]

However I took me just 3 minutes to search and find,
That you can buy and download LNER tickets direct to a mobile phone. [emoji849]

Is that classed as good use of current technology?

So you can. It's not obvious from their website - and the woman in customer service that I spoke to didn't know about it. I'm not sure that it would have worked in this case as you buy via an app and it doesn't look like I can buy on one phone and transfer to another (as you can on National Express or any airline)

 

[wellquickwoody]

We hear a lot about our railway infrastructure and how it's basically Victorian but I hadn't realised that the train companies are basically Victorian ... until yesterday.

For reasons too complicated to get into, my daughter was stranded in Nottinghamshire with no bank card and no money. If she'd wanted to get a flight back from Europe, I could have bought a ticket and sent it to her phone - no problem but that's not possible with Ye Olde Railway Companye, nor could I buy one over the phone for her to pick up.

I had to go to Brighton station, queue at the ticket office, buy a ticket and then get the booking clerk to send a fax to the station. But to do that, he has to ring the station and ask for a fax number (a directory or a website with every station's fax number and internal phone is clearly beyond the imagination of the rail companies). There was no answer so he had to ring LNER's customer services, get an internal number off them, call it, get the fax number and then ring through to confirm it had been received). This whole process took exactly an hour.

If my daughter had been stranded in London, it could literally have been quicker (and a lot cheaper) for me to hop on a train and buy a ticket myself. I'm only amazed that they didn't use carrier pigeons.

After commuting for so long, I'm not shocked by the incompetence of the rail companies but this sort of administration is a sign that there's very, very wrong in the way they're run.

So from two hundred miles away you were able to purchase a means of transport for someone with no access to payment facilities, and this took around an hour? What would you have done before mobile phones or faxes? Don't get me wrong, any business relying on 'facsimilie' machines is not really fit for purpose in the modern era, but the fact you are complaining about actually being able to help out your daughter from a remote location is the epitome of a first world problem.

 

[Gwylan]

So from two hundred miles away you were able to purchase a means of transport for someone with no access to payment facilities, and this took around an hour? What would you have done before mobile phones or faxes?

You're completely missing the point. It's precisely because this is an era of mobile phones and emails that this sort of procedure is necessary. I also suspect that, 30 years ago, it would have been a lot easier. I could have rung up Newark station (as all stations had individual numbers then) and booked a ticket by credit card for my daughter. These days, with centralised numbers, that's not possible.

And it took three hours, not one - the one hour was just the time spent with the booking clerk.

 

[beorhthelm]

And its getting shitter and shitter. If I need to be in my office or a lecture theatre by 9.00 I now have to get up at 5.00 in order to get the 6.18, which arrives in Victoria at 7.30. No later train gets me to Victoria in time to get to work. The 7.13 arrives at 8.29, but is regularly late, and I can't breeze into a lecture theatre with 200 students waiting, ten minutes late. Also this journey is timetabled to take an hour and 26 minutes. When I first moved to Faversham in 1989, there were two 'fast' trains an hour, each with a brake van where I could stow my mountain bike. The journey was timetabled to take an hour and five minutes, and typically was no more than 5 minutes late. I remember once oversleeping and still getting a train at 7.35 and being in the lecture theatre bang on 9.00. Why has my journey been timetabled to take 20 minutes longer now than when we had slam door trains? Easy answer - to make it harder for trains to be officially late (triggering refunds).

Add to that the 'no working toilet' issue, the freeloaders in first class, .... such joy to go to work....

you mileage obviously varies, time table changes this year have made my commute better and the times are slightly shorter. have they put in more stops on your route? "fast" train suggests it didnt stop much. its a bit odd to accuse them of changes to reduce services when its documented the overall number of services have increased in recent years. they have sacrificed the west and east coast services for more Brighton to London services, and we are expected to change so we have lost some convenience.

funny thing about ticket prices is they are heavily regulated and government drive the rail companies to offer cheaper fares to shift work patterns. however they dont offer any incentives to businesses to follw suit, so its rather pointless.

 

[TSB]

Just checked - UK has the 5th busiest rail network in the world (23rd biggest population). 60% more services than Switzerland, 50% more stations.

Is it as busy as Japan, where 'late' means over 2 minutes beyond the scheduled departure time?

 

[happypig]

Not saying our railways are great, but surely passenger numbers in Switzerland are tiny compared to the uk?

The counter argument is that Switzerland has a rail infrastructure that can cope with the volume of passengers; we have allowed numbers to soar without expanding capacity.