UK rail looking good....

[CosherB]

....At least the bit I noticed today. I was on a walk which passed under the railway just north of Alderley Edge. As I approached the line, a 323 local passed southbound.

Just after I'd crossed under the line by the footpath underbridge a 66 rolled by at about 60mph with about 70 full length containers. Each of those would have been an HGV-load if it had been on the roads instead of rail, so one man (despite RMT's best efforts to keep double manning) in charge of 70 HGVs with no traffic congestion and far less CO2 than 70 HGVs would generate. And a damn site safer for other road users, too!

Almost immediately, with a smooth swish, a Pendelino swept northward at about 80mph, slowing for the Wilmslow stop. Our local link to the capital in under 2 hours, one train per hour.

So, in the space of a few minutes, a local fast and efficient service, 70 HGVs NOT going by road, and a sub-2 hour hourly fast train, a 'mini TGV' to the capital.

Our railways have improved beyond recognition since privatisation!

 

[Zoe]

Our railways have improved beyond recognition since privatisation!

What is your evidence that this improvement is due to privatization?

 

[CosherB]

What is your evidence that this improvement is due to privatization?

I think you need new glasses. I didn't say it was due to privatisation (with an 's', in UK). Read my post properly, please, before diving in! not doing so makes you look a bit of a prat.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

I think you need new glasses. I didn't say it was DUE to privatisation.

You said that our railways have improved beyond recognition since privatisation, implying that the observations of trains was not happening prior to privatisation. As far as I can see this is just another attempt to start the privatisation debate again.

 

[OMGitsDAVE]

It certainly is looking good, but there are some well-kept secrets of the Railways that will never make it out.

It's still nice to see a line operating on-time, with a fair few passengers waiting.

 

[Zoe]

I think you need new glasses. I didn't say it was due to privatisation (with an 's', in UK).

-ize is valid British English.

 

[CosherB]

Where were the waiting passengers, Dave?

There are some very negative folk on here! I experience a superb-looking railway operation and to celebrate and share it I post my observation on here, and the first reply is a dig! An incorrect dig as well!

Very dissapointing!

 

[Pumbaa]

I think you need new glasses. I didn't say it was due to privatisation (with an 's', in UK). Read my post properly, please, before diving in! not doing so makes you look a bit of a prat.

-ize is valid British English.

For the benefit of all, -ize is just as correct as -ise, if not more. -ize is closer to the Greek original root -izo; it is a great misconception that -ise is the "pure" "original" form and spelling, it is the other way round.

 

[tbtc]

The OP is right; the railway is a damn impressive thing when things are working. Whilst it struggled to deal with all the extra passengers caused by Volcanic Ash/ Icy Motorways etc, the roads/ airports would struggle to cope with all the rail passengers (e.g. sticking those seventy HGVs onto the M6....).

My criticism is that when things go wrong there's no "plan B", there's little spare capacity to cope with problems. But in the past fifteen years (regardless of changes in political models etc) we've seen longer trains, more trains, increasing passenger numbers, a very efficient use of resources in a lot of places. Not perfect, but a lot better than the UK gives it credit for.

 

[CosherB]

The OP is right; the railway is a damn impressive thing when things are working. Whilst it struggled to deal with all the extra passengers caused by Volcanic Ash/ Icy Motorways etc, the roads/ airports would struggle to cope with all the rail passengers (e.g. sticking those seventy HGVs onto the M6....).

My criticism is that when things go wrong there's no "plan B", there's little spare capacity to cope with problems. But in the past fifteen years (regardless of changes in political models etc) we've seen longer trains, more trains, increasing passenger numbers, a very efficient use of resources in a lot of places. Not perfect, but a lot better than the UK gives it credit for.

That's the spirit tbtc!

And your point about poor contingency to deal with things going wrong due no spare capacity is true. A major reason why we need HS rail in UK!

France has TGV, but I think our conventional rail is probably in better shape then their conventional rail.

 

[the sniper]

Where were the waiting passengers, Dave?

At the station?

I don't think Dave was being negative. Most people don't arrive at a station when their train is already in the platform. Most people have to await the arrival of their train, whether it's on time or not.

On your topic, I agree with your sentiments. Personally, I think we're living through a golden age of the railways, in terms of their usage and the investment (mainly by the state) that has been made in the industry over the last 10+ years.

 

[tbtc]

That's the spirit tbtc!

And you point about poor contingency to deal with things going wrong due no spare capacity is true. A major reason why we need HS rail in UK!

France has TGV, but I think our conventional rail is probaly in better shape then their conventional rail.

I'm sorry for spoiling the positivity of your thread by mentioning the contingency, but when the railway works it's brilliant. All these routes that were one or two journeys a day are now hourly services, several routes are now so frequent that you don't need a timetable. There's a limit to how many more trains we can squeeze onto the network, of course, which is why I've also come round to supporting HS2 (was against it when I joined this forum) as we need to keep growing and keep transporting increasing numbers of passengers (or taking more lorries off the roads)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I think we're living through a golden age of the railways

I think we might look back at this as "the good old days" - this is a good time for Rail. And people will look back and see that we spent these days arguing about the size of windows or other "minor" things rather than appreciating what we have

 

[Striker]

I think you need new glasses. I didn't say it was due to privatisation (with an 's', in UK). Read my post properly, please, before diving in! not doing so makes you look a bit of a prat.

Oi, steady on. That was completely uncalled for. Zoe was making a valid point and what you wrote could easily be construed as saying the improvements are as a result of privatisation.

And I don't agree with what you're saying. So you saw a snapshot of the railway working well. I bet for every good example you can come up with there are about ten other people who could tell you tales of dirty, late trains, high fares, overcrowding, lack of investment.

 

[CosherB]

Glass half empty, eh striker? With a username like that, I'm not surprised!

And my response to Zoe was entirely deserved. If someone wants to criticise my post, that's fine. But they'd better criticise what I posted, not what they construed from what I posted.

 

[tbtc]

And I don't agree with what you're saying. So you saw a snapshot of the railway working well. I bet for every good example you can come up with there are about ten other people who could tell you tales of dirty, late trains, high fares, overcrowding, lack of investment.

In fairness, every time something goes wrong with the railway people do moan - look at the threads you get on here - so its refreshing to see something positive

 

[Legzr1]

70 ISO containers one one train?

Are you sure?

:eek:

 

[NXEA!]

I'd have to agree with the OP and tbtc, we do have a fantastic rail network really, which doesn't get as much credit as it deserves. Our network is one of the fastest if you think about it, countries like France and Japan get their good journey times mostly because of High Speed. We haven't got a High Speed line connecting Britain as of now, and look at the good timings we have. London-Birmingham in around 1h20, London-Manchester in just over 2 hours for most services, and the same can be said of Leeds come May 2011. London-Edinburgh in 4 hours is impressive as well I think. The times we need to work on are Cross-Country I think. I know Cross-Country is already well used, but just think if the linespeeds were improved West of Plymouth and North of Edinburgh, for a service from Penzance-Aberdeen let's say, we could really have some cracking times from these places. I'm taking those two as examples which see a lot of passenger usage but don't see maybe as much investment as they deserve. I think there are four elements of rail travel that could be improved; capacity and linespeed. I know the current economic climate won't allow for significant investment, but we do need longer trains and more of them. Improving linespeeds can create more capacity and the improved journey times can further emphasize the attractiveness of rail-travel. Also in my eyes we need cheaper fares; I think the fares are too expensive, and really need to be priced on a par to or below budget airlines in order to attract more long-distance passengers. Also the advance fares could do with being advertised more, as passengers may not be aware of the cheaper fares on offer. Stations are another area where the attractiveness of rail-travel could be boosted. Wakefield Kirkgate and Manchester Victoria for instance are relatively well served, particularly in Manchester Victoria's case, and a dingy or uncared for station can do much to put off passengers from using the station. Finally I think that maybe the railways could be a little more customer-orientated. Obviously the railways need to make money in order to keep running, and complete customer-orientation wouldn't allow so much of a profit, and would most likely make the railway less efficient to run, but for instance if TOC's were to put out questionnaires or something similar asking the customers realistically what they'd like to see implemented in the future, it could enhance the reputation for travelling by rail. However saying this, I think there are many areas where the railway excels itself such as in train frequencies for most lines, investment in train capacity and track capacity (where it offers good value for money and is well needed) and the railway network is pretty much running to full capacity which shows that Network Rail and the TOC's realise the need to make travelling by rail attractive. I think that we focus too much on the negative aspects and not enough on the positives in our railway, and that without pretty significant investment in trains, stations and track/infrastructure, this is pretty much the best the rail network can operate to in the face of this economic climate and rising passenger numbers.

 

[CosherB]

Oi! Lay off Striker please!

He may well deserve a kicking (I wouldn't know, though his presence here has certainly brought the tone down). But please don't do it on my thread. It frightens the defenceless fillies!

This is thread about how good UK rail is right now (OK, not all of the time and not everywhere, but generally it's far better than the media portray it).

So let's keep it positive!

 

[313103]

so one man (despite RMT's best efforts to keep double manning) in charge of 70 HGVs with no traffic congestion and far less CO2 than 70 HGVs would generate.

Once again Captain Speaking cant help himself, always got to have a dig at the RMT. Some things will never change, and for a minute i was starting to agree with you. Oh well looks i am not going to.

 

[Bish Boy]

considering the age of our rail network (i know the tracks been upgraded but the actual routes) and the fact that we had to decimate our network to keep it running its amazing that we can run so many trains on the main lines. I still feel alot of branches could have more made of them but that will come. I think its only been in the last few years that the "golden age" has started and with (fingers crossed) continued investment who knows where we could be in 10, 20 years

 

[CosherB]

Once again Captain Speaking cant help himself, always got to have a dig at the RMT. Some things will never change, and for a minute i was starting to agree with you. Oh well looks i am not going to.

Why not? One of the good things I saw today was ONE man running that emormous train that would otherwise have been 70 (OK, I admit I might have miscounted, but it was a very long train ) HGVs on our roads, EACH ONE with one man in the cab. That's efficiency! That's what will enable freight to go by rail where it might otherwise go by road.

Why can't you celebrate that?

 

[OMGitsDAVE]

Where were the waiting passengers, Dave?

There are some very negative folk on here! I experience a superb-looking railway operation and to celebrate and share it I post my observation on here, and the first reply is a dig! An incorrect dig as well!

Very dissapointing!

I wasn't being negative, i meant its nice to see people waiting for a train, to see demand.

I said: "It's still nice to see a line operating on-time, with a fair few passengers waiting."

Sorry if it was not as it seemed.

 

[CosherB]

I wasn't being negative, i meant its nice to see people waiting for a train, to see demand.

I said: "It's still nice to see a line operating on-time, with a fair few passengers waiting."

Sorry if it was not as it seemed.

Sorry Dave, I wasn't including you in the negative ones - it was genuine question about the passengers as it wasn't clear from your post how they came into the picture.

 

[Pumbaa]

For what its worth, I also agree with CS and tbtc (the latter as usual!) and although I cannot absolutely say that this is because of privatisation, it is a 'glory' era nonetheless. Up and up I suppose.

 

[jon0844]

I bet for every good example you can come up with there are about ten other people who could tell you tales of dirty, late trains, high fares, overcrowding, lack of investment.

Ten bad tales for every good one? You don't think much of the railways then!

Besides some TOCs have problems cleaning the exterior of the trains, are many that dirty inside? You always read in the papers, either from readers or journalists, that trains are dirty, cramped and late - but my experience is that most trains are very clean. Few of the trains I ever need to get are cramped, and most aren't late (or make up the time easily on the way).

I would say fares a very high though, but reckon I could come up with more positive stories than negative ones.

 

[the sniper]

Ten bad tales for every good one? You don't think much of the railways then!

Striker has already admitted on this forum that he is "neither a rail expert or rail enthusiast"... He also said in one of his earliest posts on this forum that he was "glad that he left the complete dump [Britain, in his opinion]", so he presumably doesn't live here anymore, and thus isn't in a great position to judge a system which he doesn't use, at least not regularly.

Striker likes to say things to wind people up, it's what he's done since his first day on this forum.

 

[CarterUSM]

I am tending to agree with Captain myself, the network is running along pretty well, and long may that continue.

 

[talltim]

I got a similar feeling last week, waiting for my morning train to Sheffield at Chesterfield station, Freightliner 66 on containers northbound, FL66 on coal southbound, XC 220 southbound and EMT 222 northbound, all passing each other in (or on the freight line) the station.

 

[Butts]

Perhaps it's time to wheel Jimmy Saville out of cold storage

"This is the age of the Train"

 

[Greenback]

Perhaps it's time to wheel Jimmy Saville out of cold storage

"This is the age of the Train"

I don't think he's been out much since the smoking ban...