Bad experience pushing you off railways onto cars

[Vespa]

Following on from an earlier discussion where a customer has forgotten her railcard and feeling so badly treated now deciding to use her car instead.

I do realise this is a rail forum, there must have been experiences that you had that made you feel like giving up on the railways and shift over to cars.

 

[FGW_DID]

what’s going to happen when said person gets a parking ticket / speeding fine / congestion charge penalty / forget their insurance etc has expired?

cry like a baby and claim they’re going everywhere by horse?

 

[NSE]

I commute a short distance across South West London whereby I can take two routes to work. Since purchasing a bike, I can also add in a third option. So I do realise I’m very fortunate being in London where I can generally alter my journey on the fly! Yes I’m delayed, but it’s virtually impossible for me to not get to work (even if it means getting changed into my cycle gear in the toilets).

But, it does hack me off when I arrive and the trains are cancelled. Once or twice, it happens (I’m a railway enthusiast for goodness sake, I know these things happen!), but there was a period when SWR were failing on me daily. I have a job where I need to do things at a certain time so it could often screw my day up. That was shortly before covid. But I was genuinely considering sacking off using the train.

 

[6Gman]

Following on from an earlier discussion where a customer has forgotten her railcard and feeling so badly treated now deciding to use her car instead.

I do realise this is a rail forum, there must have been experiences that you had that made you feel like giving up on the railways and shift over to cars.

Nope.

Horses for courses - can't think of any journey I normally take by train where I've experienced anything that would persuade me to switch to my car.

 

[seagull]

I tend to have far worse experiences when I make car journeys, certainly long ones, than I do when using a train.
At least with the train, if the worst happens and severe delays result, you know that you will usually get to, or close to, the destination, and with a refund on the ticket.
In the car when severe delays occur, which on the M6 is daily, there is absolutely nothing to be done, no "refund" of fuel cost idling in traffic jams, and no way to relax while stuck, either, especially in stop-start traffic.

So on balance, no, I think the times when I use the train I will continue to.

 

[lxfe_mxtterz]

Not necessarily something which would push me to shift over to a car (as I don't own one), but something which often does push me to use the bus instead - if there is one available - is certain late-night train journeys, particularly those of a stopping nature on quieter lines.

It is often the case that I don't feel hugely safe making these kinds of journeys alone, especially if passing through, ahem, less desirable areas which tend to attract the wrong kind of people.

At least on a bus I can feel a bit more reassured being within visible proximity of the driver, whereas on a train the guard - if there even is one - is often hiding out of sight in the back cab...

Edit: I might also add that the ambience of the train itself can affect this quite a bit - the Southern Class 456s running around South London were particularly unnerving at night in my experience.

 

[Vespa]

Not necessarily something which would push me to shift over to a car (as I don't own one), but something which often does push me to use the bus instead - if there is one available - is certain late-night train journeys, particularly those of a stopping nature on quieter lines.

It is often the case that I don't feel hugely safe making these kinds of journeys alone, especially if passing through, ahem, less desirable areas which tend to attract the wrong kind of people.

At least on a bus I can feel a bit more reassured being within visible proximity of the driver, whereas on a train the guard - if there even is one - is often hiding out of sight in the back cab...

That's an interesting point.

 

[Spaceflower]

what’s going to happen when said person gets a parking ticket / speeding fine / congestion charge penalty / forget their insurance etc has expired?

cry like a baby and claim they’re going everywhere by horse?

This is surely the future, no?

 

[FGW_DID]

This is surely the future, no?

probably quite a ‘green’ option as well! Their waste can be used for gardens et. and being environmentally friendly once they are “passed their usefulness“ can be recycled into glue or “cheap supermarket burgers”

 

[johnnychips]

I have finally sold my car since moving to Sheffield and having to commute to a suburb of Doncaster. It probably takes about twenty minutes longer by train and bus, but at least I don’t have to think in the morning, and can go shopping on the way home without having to park.
I realise this is the opposite of the thread - surely someone has found the car more convenient!

 

[Spaceflower]

It depends. I've done it before, several times. Sometimes due to cost cutting and sometimes due to convenience. Are you central Sheffield?

I'll make some other assumptions about you based upon this decision;

You're still quite young.
You don't have family commitments.

I might be way off.....

 

[Horizon22]

what’s going to happen when said person gets a parking ticket / speeding fine / congestion charge penalty / forget their insurance etc has expired?

cry like a baby and claim they’re going everywhere by horse?

Or worse generalised congestion. Should we fine Highways England for an equivalent of Delay Repay?

Anyway I don't think the railways can (nor will ever) compete on disparate point-to-point journeys which are generally rural. It is times like this that cars will be useful but I rarely find myself in those situations unless some sort of domestic holiday, in which case I hire a car anyway.

 

[johnnychips]

It depends. I've done it before, several times. Sometimes due to cost cutting and sometimes due to convenience. Are you central Sheffield?

I'll make some other assumptions about you based upon this decision;

You're still quite young.
You don't have family commitments.

I might be way off.....

Not bad. I am quite old but still working. But I don’t have family commitments, and if I had a family, I really don’t think I would do without a car for things like holidays and taking kids to clubs etc.

And yes, I am central Sheffield. But I deliberately moved to Park Hill to be near the station. It has made me appreciate why house prices in London rise significantly the nearer you are to the Tube.

 

[FGW_DID]

Or worse generalised congestion. Should we fine Highways England for an equivalent of Delay Repay?

Anyway I don't think the railways can (nor will ever) compete on disparate point-to-point journeys which are generally rural. It is times like this that cars will be useful but I rarely find myself in those situations unless some sort of domestic holiday, in which case I hire a car anyway.

I know it‘s a massive “what if” (isn’t that that what RKUF thrives on?) but imagine if ‘delay repay’ actually applied to any form of transport!!

 

[jon0844]

Following on from an earlier discussion where a customer has forgotten her railcard and feeling so badly treated now deciding to use her car instead.

I do realise this is a rail forum, there must have been experiences that you had that made you feel like giving up on the railways and shift over to cars.

You get one opportunity to produce a railcard and have a penalty fare withdrawn, so it seems bizarre to decide to drive everywhere because of it - even if the staff member was rude or condescending. Why punish yourself further?

 

[MCSHF007]

Fellow passengers. If I'd ever bothered to learn to drive I certainly would.

 

[boiledbeans2]

[...] there must have been experiences that you had that made you feel like giving up on the railways and shift over to cars.

Every time I buy a ticket and see the price. Especially for a long distance journey.

 

[Tomo]

1. Wearing masks on long distance journeys

2. The seats on Azumas

 

[FGW_DID]

Fellow passengers. If I'd ever bothered to lean to drive I certainly would.

This all day long, not just trains though. Public Transport would be awesome if it wasn’t for the public!!

 

[D821]

Consistently rising ticket prices, year upon year, but with nothing to show for it.

 

[Irascible]

Car? no, not for anything the train is an option for ( not much, down here ). Well maybe I'd push a car journey a little further than I'd otherwise. Coach and air for sure. Journey times will put me in an aircraft ( not much you can do to change those without a NE-SW highspeed line ) but horrible ambience & an uncomfortable & tiring experience will have me putting up with a coach. I've already abandoned the train for a fair bit.

 

[ld0595]

Any journey that requires a change onto a Rail Replacement Bus (RRB) just pushes me into the car.

I once was returning to Glasgow from Fort William which had a RRB south of Crianlarich due to engineering works. When arriving at Crianlarich, Scotrail had two RRBs for three 156s worth of people. To the surprise of no one, this wasn't enough, meaning most folk had to wait on a rainy platform at Crianlarich for several hours for them to get a replacement RRB to pick up the remaining passengers.

I can understand if they didn't expect this number of people, but given the number of seat reservations between Fort William and Crianlarich, it was hardly a surprise..

 

[FGW_DID]

Any journey that requires a change onto a Rail Replacement Bus (RRB) just pushes me into the car.

I once was returning to Glasgow from Fort William which had a RRB south of Crianlarich due to engineering works. When arriving at Crianlarich, Scotrail had two RRBs for three 156s worth of people. To the surprise of no one, this wasn't enough, meaning most folk had to wait on a rainy platform at Crianlarich for several hours for them to get a replacement RRB to pick up the remaining passengers.

I can understand if they didn't expect this number of people, but given the number of seat reservations between Fort William and Crianlarich, it was hardly a surprise..

not really the same, if the train was running you would be quite happy to take it (I presume).

If you wanted to drive from A-B but but on one particular day the road was closed (for whatever reason) and you had to make a diversion adding an hour or so on to your journey, would you really stop driving?

 

[njamescouk]

weird rules as to which train you can get on.

still use trains for short journeys as no parking hassle and can have a pint but long distance train travel out of the question now I'm glad to say.

 

[alex397]

It’s usually during car journeys where I have bad experiences. Almost missing flights due to getting stuck behind a motorway closure (and not being able to relax with a book, and freely walk around and use the toilet like in a train), having near-misses where I felt I could have died, getting very tired from the concentration, and so on. So, it would take a lot on a train journey to make me consider driving the same equivalent journey instead.

However there have been some occasions where I’ve thought ‘why didn’t I just drive’.
- Bad connections giving long wait times. This is now the case at Ashford ‘International’ where connections between the Canterbury West line and the Marshlink give painfully long waiting times in both directions, meaning it is now quicker to drive from the Canterbury to Rye (a journey I take fairly regularly), whereas before it was quicker by train. It doesn’t matter to me much about it taking longer by train, it’s just the long wait at a bit of a grim station where I can’t really do much which annoys me.

There have also been (fairly rare) occasions where I’ve encountered intimidating anti-social behaviour such as on local services in Kent, with little being done about it, which has made me just want to be in my own personal car!