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Are we the only country in Europe to have overcrowding issues on trains?

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Raul_Duke

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Is the overcrowding used as a political football / lazy journalistic filler as much abroad?
 
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Midnight Sun

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And in those countries where compulsory reservations apply there may well not be overcrowding, but what we don't know is how many were simply unable to travel. Compulsory reservations somewhat hide the issue of underprovision because there's no real way to record people who were turned away.

A few years ago, when in Norway. I had to wait until the following afternoon before I was able to get a train from Dombas to Oslo. As all trains to Oslo were fully booked due to some event held in Trondheim.
 

3141

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I would say (just as the UK rules define it) that that depends on the nature of the service.

On very short distance metro type services including trams and buses with a standee seating layout e.g. longitudinal, this is to be expected at any time, and overcrowding would to me indeed be based on it being impossible to board or very uncomfortable.

On medium-distance regional services, I would expect a seat off-peak but some standing in the peaks. A crush-load would be overcrowding even if everyone got to travel.

On InterCity type long distance services, if anyone is standing because they have to (some choose to) then that is overcrowded, except for exceptional situations like major events.

Thanks. My view is that the distinctions are to some extent theoretical, because services assume different functions and characteristics along their route (as pointed out in #23). If I had to stand between Grantham and Peterborough it would be overcrowding at any time on LNER but only off-peak on EMR. I wouldn't like to be a member of staff explaining that to a passenger!
 

gingerheid

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vlad

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I've been on Moscow Metro trains where it's been physically impossible to move due to the number of people in the carriage.

It fascinates me where everyone comes from, as in the 2-3 minutes between the departure of one train and the arrival of the next, the completely empty platform will fill up again.
 

Bletchleyite

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I've been on Moscow Metro trains where it's been physically impossible to move due to the number of people in the carriage.

It fascinates me where everyone comes from, as in the 2-3 minutes between the departure of one train and the arrival of the next, the completely empty platform will fill up again.

Sounds like Bank LU in the evening rush.
 

Master29

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I can remember a few years ago seeing a TV programme (Bombay Railway) about commuter trains in Mumbai, India. Now that is real overcrowding, and makes the tube in the rush hour seem like a Sunday school tea party.
I think I remember this. Wasn't it a mini series about Mumbai and how it's rail system has grown in recent years. As you say you had to see it to believe it. Compelling watching for sure. Indian Rail should have an interesting next few years, possibly with high speed rail which this documentary seemed to be indicating at the end. The days of huge clag clouds from diesels may well be numbered there
 

urbophile

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I stood for nearly two hours (in a crowded lobby with one foot in the stairwell and the other on floor level, with backpack and suitcase, along with maybe 40 others similarly encumbered, to say nothing of the hundreds in the rest of the train) on a Regionale from Genova to Milano Centrale last July. It was a Sunday and extremely hot (fortunately the aircon was working). All the Intercity trains that day were fully booked so I had no other option. I love Italy and I love Trenitalia but efficiency-wise, at least in that part of the country, it is hard to see the difference between that and Northernland where I live.
 

Bald Rick

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I stood for nearly two hours (in a crowded lobby with one foot in the stairwell and the other on floor level, with backpack and suitcase, along with maybe 40 others similarly encumbered, to say nothing of the hundreds in the rest of the train) on a Regionale from Genova to Milano Centrale last July. It was a Sunday and extremely hot (fortunately the aircon was working). All the Intercity trains that day were fully booked so I had no other option. I love Italy and I love Trenitalia but efficiency-wise, at least in that part of the country, it is hard to see the difference between that and Northernland where I live.

Funnily enough I did exactly the same ... 29 years ago. No aircon then though.
 

AlbertBeale

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Brussels - Oostende can be quite busy too. Although not near standing room only.

That line used to be absolutely chokka with commuters at peak times, decades ago, whenever I used it (as I did a number of times) as part of the cheapest route from London to Brussels (via the overnight boat to Ostend and an early morning train on to Brussels; there weren't still any boat trains at that time in that era, though the port-station connection was brilliant). The good side was that, getting on at the start of the line, I could get a seat, though jammed in with my rucksack. The bad side was that there was smoking on the trains in those days, and all the commuters seemed to smoke.
 

gazzaa2

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When The Victorians built the railways they weren't catering for a 70 million population. Same throughout western Europe.
 

stut

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I think I remember this. Wasn't it a mini series about Mumbai and how it's rail system has grown in recent years. As you say you had to see it to believe it. Compelling watching for sure. Indian Rail should have an interesting next few years, possibly with high speed rail which this documentary seemed to be indicating at the end. The days of huge clag clouds from diesels may well be numbered there

It was a rather interesting series - featuring the famous Mumbai "super dense crush load". I know this is OT for the thread, but a lot of Indian cities have been really struggling with transport. The suburban rail networks of the big cities weren't built for the two-way commuting that a lot of the new tech campuses have brought (and a lot of their planning was based on building big motorways... that abruptly finish and don't help the traffic at all). Places like Hyderabad have been desperately congested, but the suburban network is a handful of trains that have to somehow fit round the main inter-city services. Some are hourly at best, and can often run 30, 60, 90 minutes late. The death rates due to trespass are horrific.

Now the cities are investing in metro systems, and that's making a huge difference, but many have been plagued with construction problems, corruption and bust contractors. I do worry about some of the build quality. If you want to see an example of how it can go wrong, look at Chennai's 90s/00s extension to its MRTS suburban rail network. Tamil Nadu notoriously struggles with corruption, but poor quality and poor maintenance has left part of the system looking like a post-apocalyptic hellscape, where people have narrowly escaped parts of buildings collapsing on them.

I stumbled upon this a few years ago - I'd been working in Hyderabad, and had headed down to the Tamil coast for the weekend. I caught a bus up to Chennai for the night train back. Chennai bus station is awful - bad location, bad connectivity, and just generally chaotic, so I spotted an MRTS station (in one of the tech areas) - Indira Nagar - and jumped off. I regretted this immediately, as the building I approached was clearly abandoned and closed off. Ah, no, there's someone coming out. This, but with the doors all shut, as it was the weekend:

03_big.jpg


This was built in 2004! I can't find an image of the inside, but it's a big, barely-lit hall of crumbling concrete with screeching escalators and a lift that I wouldn't look at sideways. Platform level was scarcely better, but at least it was more exposed (this is a shot framing it as really bad at the end of the platform - the main section wasn't badly built, just not really maintained):

IMG_5702.JPG


I know it's easy to point at India for crowding and failed infrastructure, but the people who work in these tech areas have been failed, both by local government and by the massive companies setting up there. Corruption looms large.

Anyway, sorry for the OT diversion. Whenever people tell me we "literally have a third world railway" here, I think of my experiences working in and travelling round India (certainly parts other than Mumbai and Delhi - although I could tell you how dysfunctional parts of the much-lauded Delhi metro are) and realise just how far off that statement is.
 

stut

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And back to Europe. Yes, there is obviously overcrowding in trains elsewhere. I used to commute out from Amsterdam Zuid to the Schiphol/Hoofddorp business parks, and you could struggle to board even the big double-deckers there. I used to wait for the Germany-Schiphol train (a short-lived experiment). No idea if you were allowed to board it, but nobody ever bothered me.

The Parisian RER system is great, but pushed to its limit. It's just so fast (RER C excepted) and well connected. I remember going on it for the first time in the 80s, and it was incredible then. Now, it's struggling. It's got a lot of faults. Some of the central Paris stations (especially RER A/B/D) are just so crowded and complex, and in many cases, poorly maintained and a sink for every ne'erdowell in the city. They were desperate to connect as much as possible, so you ended up with stations like Auber and Chatelet les Halles, sprawling underground octopuses of stations, their tentacles touching every metro they can find, up and down steps, along corridors, travelators... And yet, how do you find daylight again? RER C took the pre-RER SNCF services running through Austerlitz/Invalides, and barely improved them. It's shockingly slow, especially compared to the other lines.

And then there's the grands projets era RER E stations. Some great aspects (4 platforms on through stations to give operational resilience in the peak), but hugely overblown in terms of design and execution, and remarkably hard to get to. The walk from Gare du Nord to Magenta, or from Gare St Lazare to Haussman St Lazare has you going "are we there yet" like a bored child in a car seat. Interesting, though, that the current transport focus is on cross-linking outer suburbia. This may really help - we'll see.
 

175mph

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When The Victorians built the railways they weren't catering for a 70 million population. Same throughout western Europe.
But other Western European countries have updated their infrastructure to compensate though, that's why I thought the overcrowding wasn't the problem it is here.
 

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TheEdge

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But other Western European countries have updated their infrastructure to compensate though...

It did help that there was significant continent wide demolition program done between 1939 - 1945 that allowed a large amount of infrastructure to be rebuilt on mid 20th century foundations rather than Victorian.
 
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Some demolition was done in the 19th century as well. The Stadtbahn in Berlin is a 4 track on viaduct line driven through what was even then the heart of a busy city. For the Northwestern commentariat it’s equivalent to a viaduct from London Road to Victoria, plus a good few miles more, for Londoners Paddington to Liverpool St, not as cut and cover local railway but as main line standard with through running and on a four track viaduct.

I do love the use of the phrase “literally”. It usually means absolutely the opposite now!
 

gazzaa2

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But other Western European countries have updated their infrastructure to compensate though, that's why I thought the overcrowding wasn't the problem it is here.

Outside London that's true but many of the places starved of investment have seen population decreases over years anyway in UK. I can only go by my own experience but the trains in Spain I've used were not as packed and have had investment. If you travel in the summer around Western Europe theres just too many people for there not to be overcrowding in the big cities.

You look at the boom of Manchester's population it's been catered to by the Metro, but the mainline bottleneck in central Manchester is horrendous, as is the overcrowding. That's a lack of investment that pervades through the north.
 

175mph

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It was a rather interesting series - featuring the famous Mumbai "super dense crush load". I know this is OT for the thread, but a lot of Indian cities have been really struggling with transport. The suburban rail networks of the big cities weren't built for the two-way commuting that a lot of the new tech campuses have brought (and a lot of their planning was based on building big motorways... that abruptly finish and don't help the traffic at all). Places like Hyderabad have been desperately congested, but the suburban network is a handful of trains that have to somehow fit round the main inter-city services. Some are hourly at best, and can often run 30, 60, 90 minutes late. The death rates due to trespass are horrific.

Now the cities are investing in metro systems, and that's making a huge difference, but many have been plagued with construction problems, corruption and bust contractors. I do worry about some of the build quality. If you want to see an example of how it can go wrong, look at Chennai's 90s/00s extension to its MRTS suburban rail network. Tamil Nadu notoriously struggles with corruption, but poor quality and poor maintenance has left part of the system looking like a post-apocalyptic hellscape, where people have narrowly escaped parts of buildings collapsing on them.

I stumbled upon this a few years ago - I'd been working in Hyderabad, and had headed down to the Tamil coast for the weekend. I caught a bus up to Chennai for the night train back. Chennai bus station is awful - bad location, bad connectivity, and just generally chaotic, so I spotted an MRTS station (in one of the tech areas) - Indira Nagar - and jumped off. I regretted this immediately, as the building I approached was clearly abandoned and closed off. Ah, no, there's someone coming out. This, but with the doors all shut, as it was the weekend:

03_big.jpg


This was built in 2004! I can't find an image of the inside, but it's a big, barely-lit hall of crumbling concrete with screeching escalators and a lift that I wouldn't look at sideways. Platform level was scarcely better, but at least it was more exposed (this is a shot framing it as really bad at the end of the platform - the main section wasn't badly built, just not really maintained):

IMG_5702.JPG


I know it's easy to point at India for crowding and failed infrastructure, but the people who work in these tech areas have been failed, both by local government and by the massive companies setting up there. Corruption looms large.

Anyway, sorry for the OT diversion. Whenever people tell me we "literally have a third world railway" here, I think of my experiences working in and travelling round India (certainly parts other than Mumbai and Delhi - although I could tell you how dysfunctional parts of the much-lauded Delhi metro are) and realise just how far off that statement is.
Did you spot any rodents running about in there?
 

Mogz

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One thing that I have noticed while travelling on the continent is that first class typically only costs a little bit more than standard. It often does not come with complementary food (there’s a restaurant car for that), however.

I understand that on BR traditionally first class cost one third more than the comparable standard class ticket.

Nowadays there does not seem to be such a link.

On Cross Country I often see First Class virtually empty while Standard is packed to the rafters.

If First Class still only cost 1/3 more I would be sometimes tempted to go for it, which would free up room in Standard.

As things are I can’t afford it so I’ll have to continue taking up space in the corridor or aisle.
 

30907

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One thing that I have noticed while travelling on the continent is that first class typically only costs a little bit more than standard. It often does not come with complementary food (there’s a restaurant car for that), however.

I understand that on BR traditionally first class cost one third more than the comparable standard class ticket.

Nowadays there does not seem to be such a link.

On Cross Country I often see First Class virtually empty while Standard is packed to the rafters.

If First Class still only cost 1/3 more I would be sometimes tempted to go for it, which would free up room in Standard.

As things are I can’t afford it so I’ll have to continue taking up space in the corridor or aisle.

First class fares were traditionally 50% more, reflecting the extra space you get and mileage-based ones still are around that in some places on the mainland, though a random check on DB suggests full-price 1st fares are 70-80% more. Advance fares are much more variable, though, as they are here.
 

dutchflyer

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Crowded will mean all seats taken and there are standees.
OVERcrowded (for me) means that stage is passed and its impossible to get on a train on its way. has happened to me somewhere in South London in the PM peak. Next train just being able to shove on-but it then showed was for only 8-9 mins and nearly emptied out at last stop in the Gr LOn area.
There is also an even higher degree-roofriders, people sitting on buffers, etc-but thats not in EUrope-think Bangla desh etc.
Am now in BKK/Thailand at the mo and the airportlink (its run by the SRT, but not really a train, more like an overground metro, but only ev 12/15 mins) its common for locals in the AM peak when the train is rammed full at airport (but alas too often with selfish people who think their luggage has as much right to a seat as themselves) and the locals boarding further on have to wait neatly in a Q sometimes for 3-4 trains before they can get in.
 

rf_ioliver

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On the local Helsinki commuter services and metro, yes at rush hours and late at night for the last services some evenings. However it isn't to crush levels and the journeys aren't so long, plus the trains are modern Stadler FLIRT units usually run as 2x4 cars. Frequencies are 4tphj with some stations seeing 8-10+ tph (Leppävaara for example).

Long distance trains have compulsory seating and are usually full, especially between Helsinki, Tampere and Turku.
 

Master29

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One thing that I have noticed while travelling on the continent is that first class typically only costs a little bit more than standard. It often does not come with complementary food (there’s a restaurant car for that), however.

I understand that on BR traditionally first class cost one third more than the comparable standard class ticket.

Nowadays there does not seem to be such a link.

On Cross Country I often see First Class virtually empty while Standard is packed to the rafters.

If First Class still only cost 1/3 more I would be sometimes tempted to go for it, which would free up room in Standard.

As things are I can’t afford it so I’ll have to continue taking up space in the corridor or aisle.
In most cases there is no complimentary food on the continent for first apart from the similar titbits like you get here. In that respect LNER and Virgin West Coast gave a good deal but I'm not sure if that will continue for too long with another First group partner as it seems to be their modus operandi to downgrade services, although the GWR Pullman services are good quality.
 

Mogz

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In most cases there is no complimentary food on the continent for first apart from the similar titbits like you get here. In that respect LNER and Virgin West Coast gave a good deal but I'm not sure if that will continue for too long with another First group partner as it seems to be their modus operandi to downgrade services, although the GWR Pullman services are good quality.

The GWR Pullman is superb, and is one of the last trains in the UK where you can get into a full high quality restaurant car with a Standard Class ticket.

Although not one of my usual stomping grounds, do I remember that GNER had these on nearly every ECML service?

Back OT- does anyone think that a +1/3 or +1/2 fare for first class would ease overcrowding in standard?
 
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