Things UK railways get right compared to other countries

DynamicSpirit · 7 Jul 2019

I see so many comments on railforums criticising UK railways and then saying something along the lines of 'this would never happen in other countries' as if our rail system is uniquely bad and everyone else's rail systems are miles better. I'm pretty sure that isn't the case - it's just that we tend to preferentially notice the bad things we experience, not the good things.

So this thread is a chance to put the balance right. Use it to give examples of things that - in your experience - the UK's railway system seems to do better than railways in other industrialised countries. Or bad things you've experienced in other countries that would be unlikely to happen in the UK.

Thread rule; Comparisons can only be with industrialised countries that have a standard of living not too far below the UK (and which can therefore be realistically expected to provide a comparably well organised transport network). For example, comparisons with France or Poland or Singapore are fine. Central African Republic would be off-topic.

RailUK Forums

DynamicSpirit · 7 Jul 2019

As an example: I was in Bari, Italy a while back, trying to buy a ticket to Matera. Went to the main ticket office at the main station and was immediately told to go to FAL's ticket office in the next building to buy the ticket. Turns out the station is served by three different train operators and they all have their own ticket offices at which they sell (I assume) only their own tickets. A bit like - say - GWR and Cross Country having their own ticket offices at Reading and refusing to sell tickets for each other's services.

To make it even more confusing, the timetables on display at the station (and on FAL's website) were actually out of date: They were showing a train only as far as a place called Altamura, then a bus service the rest of the way, because of line upgrade work. In fact, the upgrade was almost complete and the line had re-opened some weeks earlier: I ended up nearly getting stranded for 2 hours at Altamura because I believed the timetables and went looking for the non-existant bus there. Fortunately, in the nick of time, I asked a local where the bus was, and got correctly directed back to the train I'd just got off of - seconds before it pulled out!

At least in the UK, we have good ticket inter-operability (at least on the national rail network) and published timetables are normally the correct ones

Clayton · 7 Jul 2019

Proper platforms that are the right height so that you don’t need to climb a narrow ladder to get on the train in the thirty seconds it stops. And there isn’t another for four hours so you mustn’t miss it.

TravellingPhil · 7 Jul 2019

I lived in Columbus, Ohio from 2004 to 2006. One of the things I was looking forward to was using the train over there...

...except I never did. Despite being the 15th largest city in the US, Columbus hasn't had a passenger service since 1979. The nearest passenger station is over 200 miles away and the daily train, in each direction, stops in the middle of the night. If I remember, I think the Amtrak station was in a place called Alliance on the Capital Limited route.

Columbus doesn't even have light rail, a metro or streetcars, only buses. There have been many attempts to bring passenger rail and streetcars back to Columbus, but it's a very political topic there and each attempt has failed simply because of the ideology of whoever State Governor or City Mayor happens to be.

So there is one thing straight away we do better, we serve our largest cities with a regular train service.

Bletchleyite · 7 Jul 2019

Frequency, mostly clock face timetabling, walk up still possible, staffing levels?

Randomer · 7 Jul 2019

Availability of walk up fares valid for use on more than 1 TOC as previously mentioned has to be pretty high up on the list for me (with reference to Poland in the original post).

Also the lack of airline style demand pricing being the only type of ticket available on long distance services. This leads to silly pricing where one shorter bit of the route is the most popular so gets the highest prices (very notable in Sweden where break of journey is effectively barred.)

Which leads me on to the ability to have a break of journey on tickets. To me the lack of publicity/knowledge about this is shocking as it is one of the most useful parts of our current ticketing system to me.

yorkie · 7 Jul 2019

Ability to break journey. Flexibility without having to "compost" tickets. Not having compulsory reservations. Inter-available tickets. Not having mileage based pricing. Not having airline style pricing as the only option.

Basically all the things the likes of Virgin Trains want to get rid of :lol:

I know of bad practices occurring in:

Republic of Ireland - ban on combining two or more tickets for one journey ("split tickets")
France - having to "compost" tickets
France - having to have a reservation for TGVs, and having to pay supplements
Italy - having to choose between a mileage based fare for one train or an ailine style fare for another train for a relatively short journey akin to York to Leeds. Why can Italy not just have a suitably priced flexible fare for such a journey?!

Czech Republic prices are cheap, so I can't complain too much, but it was silly that I had to specify an exact route to get from Hostivice to Prague for mileage reasons because some routes are longer than others; I was sold the wrong one. It'd be like abolishing London Terminals tickets when you don't know what terminal you may go into. Some people moan about our market based pricing and group stations but it's a lot simpler than having to faff around and knowing exactly which terminal you are going to use, because the mileage has to be exact.

DynamicSpirit · 7 Jul 2019

Just to clarify... When stating good things about the UK system, it would be useful to say which other country doesn't have these good things, and perhaps say a little bit about your experiences in that regard.

paddington · 7 Jul 2019

Agree with yorkie and Randomer's posts which contained the main points I was going to raise.

- Also the ability to buy tickets online, from a machine and from a person at the same price (where available) - at least Germany and Sweden charge for buying some tickets from a person when a machine is available.

- No hostility to using cash to buy tickets and where cash is not accepted then ability to pay later- some countries have machines which are card only, or card and coin only. Also in this vein, the promise to pay idea is theoretically a good thing, although Northern's implementation leaves many things to be desired.

- While the routeing guide can get very complicated, the top-level parts are fairly straightforward yet allow for some creativity

I would like to say the open data and useful sites like brtimes/brfares/realtimetrains and various enthusiast-made maps but I haven't tried very hard to find out how other countries compare to the UK, partially because I don't know what to search for in other languages.

Polarbear · 7 Jul 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Frequency, mostly clock face timetabling, walk up still possible, staffing levels?

Definitely frequency. It amazes many people (and me on occasion) how infrequent some services in wider Europe can be. Frequent services are something that are taken very much for granted in the UK.

Saperstein · 7 Jul 2019

yorkie said:
Ability to break journey. Flexibility without having to "compost" tickets.

What is “composting” tickets? I did a search and came away thinking it meant decomposing tickets lol

Saperstein.

LNW-GW Joint · 7 Jul 2019

Saperstein said:
What is “composting” tickets? I did a search and came away thinking it meant decomposing tickets lol
Saperstein.

Stamping tickets in a machine on the platform to validate it and prevent its reuse.
Typical in countries where you can buy carnets or otherwise undated tickets which must be stamped before you travel to make them valid.
Not needed if you have a date/time/train-specific ticket (which we would call an Advance).
It eventually dawned on me that Santiago de Compostela was so named as it was the place you got a stamp to prove you had completed the pilgrimage.
Also linked to the word compose/composition.

yorkie · 7 Jul 2019

Saperstein said:
What is “composting” tickets? I did a search and came away thinking it meant decomposing tickets lol

Saperstein.

Top two search results for me are:

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowT...osting_Train_Tickets-Paris_Ile_de_France.html

Re: Composting Train Tickets

The SNCF machines require validation of all tickets except self-printed tickets. This means either putting a main line ticket in a yellow validator, a suburban ticket in a turnstile, or waving a Navigo pass over the validation zone of a turnstile.

http://walkinginfrance.info/beginners-guide/the-french-rail-system/

An oddity of the French rail system is that tickets (but not etickets) must be “composted” before boarding the train.

This means getting them punched in a little yellow machine at the entrance of the platform.

Tickets are always checked by a conductor on the train and if they are not composted, you will be frowned on, or even fined.

30907 · 7 Jul 2019

Saperstein said:
What is “composting” tickets? I did a search and came away thinking it meant decomposing tickets lol

Saperstein.

Validating. The French word is "composter" which does mean "compost" apparently but on SNCF also means validate by stamping.
ISTR a newspaper story when the practice was fairly new (so 35+ years ago) about a celeb getting caught by this (was it Spike Milligan?) and complaining that he didn't understand the word...

edwin_m · 7 Jul 2019

Saperstein said:
What is “composting” tickets? I did a search and came away thinking it meant decomposing tickets lol

Saperstein.

Composting is validating tickets before use. The French in particular have been very keen on this since the 1970s and their inspectors don't look kindly on people who forget. It does have the advantage that you can buy carnets and tickets in advance without specifying the date/time you intend to use them, but for anyone else it seems pretty pointless. The only UK use I'm aware of was for a short period on Sheffield Supertram when it first opened.

I remember putting "Il a acheté et composté son billet" in a French essay having seen the publicity for the new systems on a holiday not long before. It got me some red ink as the teacher had never heard of the word!

Saperstein · 7 Jul 2019

Thanks for all the quick and Informative replies! Sorry to hi-jack this thread

Saperstein.

Struner · 7 Jul 2019

Clayton said:
Proper platforms that are the right height so that you don’t need to climb a narrow ladder to get on the train in the thirty seconds it stops. And there isn’t another for four hours so you mustn’t miss it.

Where would that be?

Polarbear · 7 Jul 2019

Another thing the UK is good at is free seat reservations. I’m currently in Eire where it’s €5 for a seat reservation. The other week, I was in Sweden, where a seat reservation can cost anything between 45SEK (£3.80) to 175SEK (around £14), depending on type of train being used. Compulsory reservation is a nuisance too, which thankfully doesn’t occur very often in the UK.

Richard Scott · 7 Jul 2019

Customer service - a late running diverted ICE train in Germany told those for Duesseldorf to change at Moenchengladbach - not one member of staff there to direct passengers. Ended up having to help a number of Germans and a very confused older American lady to find the train. Doubt this would happen in the UK. Likewise in France Metro was up the creek in Paris we just got chucked out - no-one to help and no rail replacement. Not impressed!

Cowley · 7 Jul 2019

An obvious one for me would be keeping trains relatively free of graffiti.
I’ve seen trains in Croatia, Paris and other places that have been covered in the stuff, like this one in Pula, Croatia:

F Great Eastern · 7 Jul 2019

Polarbear said:
Another thing the UK is good at is free seat reservations. I’m currently in Eire where it’s €5 for a seat reservation.

It's not €5 for a seat reservation.

It's €2.50 per leg when you are using a non service specific ticket, using a free travel pass, or other kinds of fully flexible ticket. If you are buying a ticket online for advance purchase, a seat is included on all services where seat reservations are available.

Polarbear · 7 Jul 2019

F Great Eastern said:
It's not €5 for a seat reservation.

It's €2.50 per leg when you are using a non service specific ticket, using a free travel pass, or other kinds of fully flexible ticket. If you are buying a ticket online for advance purchase, a seat is included on all services where seat reservations are available.

I was looking at the Irish Rail website as I’m currently sat on a very busy service to Westport, and the website quoted me €5 for a reservation on the return leg to Dublin this evening. Not saying your wrong, but I was just relaying my experience in real time.

F Great Eastern · 7 Jul 2019

Polarbear said:
I was looking at the Irish Rail website as I’m currently sat on a very busy service to Westport, and the website quoted me €5 for a reservation on the return leg to Dublin this evening. Not saying your wrong, but I was just relaying my experience in real time.

If you have bought a ticket online for a specific service a seat is included in the price, this is now FROM €2.50 when it used to be €2.50, it's changed it seems.

If you have a flexible ticket or a pass you need to pay extra, I assume you have an open/flexible ticket.

http://www.irishrail.ie/rail-fares-and-tickets/online-bookings?a=59

306024 · 7 Jul 2019

Richard Scott said:
Customer service - a late running diverted ICE train in Germany told those for Duesseldorf to change at Moenchengladbach - not one member of staff there to direct passengers. Ended up having to help a number of Germans and a very confused older American lady to find the train. Doubt this would happen in the UK. Likewise in France Metro was up the creek in Paris we just got chucked out - no-one to help and no rail replacement. Not impressed!

Funny you should mention this. Just been chucked off the train at Moenchengladbach, 16.25 to Venlo not running. Two DB station staff directing passengers, one speaking excellent English, towards the replacement bus.

Given my German experiences of the past few days, (all three journeys disrupted, two trains cancelled) UK railways are more punctual and reliable (controversial).

radamfi · 7 Jul 2019

Polarbear said:
Another thing the UK is good at is free seat reservations.

I'm not sure this is a good thing. It means that there are many unused reservations. Also, as with anything "free", all it means is that cost is claimed back elsewhere.

Similarly, "free" food in First Class is often claimed to be a good thing that happens in Britain, but again it just means higher fares, especially if you are not interested in that food.

radamfi · 7 Jul 2019

306024 said:
UK railways are more punctual and reliable (controversial).

We need to see statistics to see if that is the case and any comparison needs to be for whole journeys including connections, not just for direct trains.

306024 · 7 Jul 2019

radamfi said:
We need to see statistics to see if that is the case and any comparison needs to be for whole journeys including connections, not just for direct trains.

I did say based on my recent personal experience, which was 0% PPM, two journeys delayed 60 minutes plus. And no delay repay!

radamfi · 7 Jul 2019

Polarbear said:
Definitely frequency. It amazes many people (and me on occasion) how infrequent some services in wider Europe can be. Frequent services are something that are taken very much for granted in the UK.

You need to compare countries with similar population densities and spread of big cities. Rail has a huge advantage in countries with a high population density and at least one huge city. The UK has a very high population density, especially the area south of Preston and east of Bristol. In Europe, only the Netherlands rivals the UK in population density but the Netherlands doesn't have a megacity anywhere near the size of London. Maybe Germany as well but Berlin doesn't have a large commuter belt like London. In the developed world, probably only Japan has a more favourable population spread for rail.

France is notable for having big gaps in service in the middle of the day even on lines which are reasonably frequent the rest of the day. That isn't seen in the UK, although it isn't common elsewhere in the rest of Europe either.

Polarbear · 7 Jul 2019

F Great Eastern said:
If you have bought a ticket online for a specific service a seat is included in the price, this is now FROM €2.50 when it used to be €2.50, it's changed it seems.

If you have a flexible ticket or a pass you need to pay extra, I assume you have an open/flexible ticket.

http://www.irishrail.ie/rail-fares-and-tickets/online-bookings?a=59

Yep, I’m on an Inter Rail.

duesselmartin · 7 Jul 2019

radamfi said:
We need to see statistics to see if that is the case and any comparison needs to be for whole journeys including connections, not just for direct trains.

My subjectice experience ist that UK trains are very punctual compared to my home country Germany.
What I like in the UK is that departure bords Show all stops and not just a random selection.
Also the mentioned better staffing at UK stations.
Martin

Things UK railways get right compared to other countries

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