Stations.
That even smaller stations are manned and offer indoor waiting areas and other services is great.
.
Alas, that's very patchy, depending on which part of this sceptered isle you're referring to.
Stations.
That even smaller stations are manned and offer indoor waiting areas and other services is great.
.
We're way behind. In about 1999 I rode on a bi-mode 2-car MU (a bit like a souped up bogied Pacer) which ran on the AKN A1 line (a curious pseudo light rail thing which is sort of designed like a rural U-Bahn, a bit reminiscent of Metrolink's more rural bits but on lower frequencies) through to the S-Bahnhof at Hamburg Hbf on diesel to start with then third rail. Closest thing to it in the UK was probably a Class 230 with the shoes left on. It'd be a bit like having a 230 run through to Liverpool Central from Preston - or indeed if they ever find a way to run through from Wrexham to James St.
Alas, that's very patchy, depending on which part of this sceptered isle you're referring to.
My experiences with british trains are mostly from Scotland and a bit from southern England (the GWR-area).
Another thing I don't think has been mentioned yet is direct services to smaller towns, at least to London. Many countries on the continent rely much more heavily on passengers changing trains at hubs - you wouldn't get a situation like in the UK where a town like Newton Abbot (population 25,000) has a regular direct service to the capital nearly 200 miles away. This could be seen as a bad thing or a good thing - it slows down intercity services and changing trains isn't that bad - but some people probably like it.
Yes, the UK does seem to go for that sort of model - "London terminal fast to X then all stations to Y" is an extremely common service model - there are variants of it all over the place. Whereas DB would probably run the GWR Penzance calling at more stations between Reading and Exeter but probably missing out the majority of the Cornish stations, with a 2-hourly RE connection serving those.
That model also makes good use of track capacity - you send the fast out then the "all stations to X" stopper, which also means that by the time you get to X the following fast has pretty much caught up, allowing a good connection from the stopper onto it for those wishing to go further. The DB model requires either 4 tracks or a lot of loops (they tend to go for the latter).
Yes, I think there's something to be said for the traditional "InterCity" product being a mixture of very fast, and not so fast expresses, rather than being pure city to city expresses. It's probably helped to keep the county towns and shires more engaged with the railway than would otherwise have been the case.
Agreed, and I am actually fairly concerned about the proposals to remove direct London services from Lancaster, Oxenholme and Penrith once HS2 opens for that sort of reason. I'd actually rather we ran some fast to Preston (maybe calling at Crewe for connectivity) but then called everything at all stations between there and Carlisle, to be honest.
We're way behind. In about 1999 I rode on a bi-mode 2-car MU (a bit like a souped up bogied Pacer) which ran on the AKN A1 line (a curious pseudo light rail thing which is sort of designed like a rural U-Bahn, a bit reminiscent of Metrolink's more rural bits but on lower frequencies) through to the S-Bahnhof at Hamburg Hbf on diesel to start with then third rail. Closest thing to it in the UK was probably a Class 230 with the shoes left on. It'd be a bit like having a 230 run through to Liverpool Central from Preston - or indeed if they ever find a way to run through from Wrexham to James St.
I don't think they run like that any more (they've swapped to FLIRTs or similar without third-rail shoes) but we were by no means first!
AKN runs with a mix of curious looking high-floor box shaped VTA trains and newer Alstom Coradia LINT these days. The through service to Hamburg is limited these days- and the one I saw powered out down the main S-Bahn with engines rumbling, so I'm unsure on whether bi-mode is bothered with, unless it happens much closer to the centre (where fumes etc may become an issue).
It's the VTA that is the one I'm referring - half way between a Hamburg DT2/DT3 EMU, a bogied Pacer and a Class 230. The 230 is probably the closest thing we have to it.
I'd expect they would go onto third rail before entering the S-Bahn tunnels, unless they now run into the main station "open" S-Bahn platforms instead. The time I used one it ran as an EMU once on the third rail and ran into the tunnel.
The latest Streckennetz doesn't include Hamburg itself at all- so perhaps it's been finished. It was at Eidelstedt that I saw a VTA power away on diesel though- they're pretty entertaining units!
The timetable lists two morning trains to Hamburg Hbf (https://www.akn.de/fahrplaene.html?file=files/public/downloads/fahrplaene/fahrplaene/a1/AKN_Fahrplan_A1_2018-2019_WEB 2.pdf) and this Youtube documentary worth watching shows the trains using the third rail in 2017 ()
So I can't think of anything that the UK does better than the Swiss in this respect.
NS focus on frequency, offering good connections, and well-equipped and comfortable stations. There are plenty of retail facilities at many stations (even small ones) which pretty much negates the need to provide on-train retail facilities.Though Nederlandse Spoorwegen is the *definition* of Spartan.
Quiet coaches. In Denmark this apparently means "no talking"! I agree about graffiti on passenger stock - not a big problem in UK, I suppose because of securely fenced depots. Slovenia was particularly bad a few years ago.
Strange how most other countries seem to cope fine without Quiet Coaches (I say having witnessed another Quiet Coach 'Rage' incident the other day directed at another passenger).
I have certainly told people forcefully to turn music/devices down or get out and sit elsewhere. After brief answering back they've always realised their error and either turned the device off or moved.
I'm supportive of the Danish approach - if we're going to have it, let's have it library-quiet. If you want to make noise, there are loads of other coaches.
However, no devices of any kind should ever be played deliberately out loud on board a train in any coach. Use headphones. The only sound acceptable out loud is conversation.
I still don't understand why we apparently need them. A solution to a minor problem in the 1990s. (I agree about being considerate with a noise generation in the train as a whole).
So I can't think of anything that the UK does better than the Swiss in this respect.
Quiet coaches. In Denmark this apparently means "no talking"! Also in Denmark, I saw that the ticket office at Roskilde was open only between 0900 and 1600 on Mondays to Fridays. This is a very busy station serving a historic city with a population of some 48,000, 30 km west of Copenhagen. There are ticket machines and I assume they offer the full range of tickets, but there was no visible station staff in the evenings or presumably at weekends. The same is true in Sweden - only the stations in very large towns have ticket offices at all.
Also shorter journeys can be hideously expensive. I had to pay 30 francs for a single recently.