Trains are better than the stress of flying, anyone agree?

[Bromley boy]

Flying is a pretty miserable experience, the train wins every time where it is practicable.

Britain is a small country and should have a network of high-speed lines covering by the whole country by now. it is an indictment of transport policy failure and governments' refusal to invest in HS rail that the internal airline market still exists in 2018.

Agreed flying is usually pretty miserable.

I disagree about the need for a network of high speed lines. They are simply unnecessary in such a small country. 125mph (hopefully 140mph in due course) is plenty!

The U.K. has good rail connections between the major commercial centres. Most of the major commercial centres (Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds) can be accessed by rail from London within no more than a couple of hours.

Flying only really starts to make sense for the very longest U.K. journeys e.g. London to Scotland.

 

[muddythefish]

I disagree about the need for a network of high speed lines. They are simply unnecessary in such a small country. 125mph (hopefully 140mph in due course) is plenty!

The U.K. has good rail connections between the major commercial centres. Most of the major commercial centres (Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds) can be accessed by rail from London within no more than a couple of hours.

Flying only really starts to make sense for the very longest U.K. journeys e.g. London to Scotland.

London, London, London, London.

Glasgow/Edinburgh/Manchester/Newcastle/Leeds - Bristol, West Country/South Coast/Cardiff take an eternity and are often delayed on a network built in the 19th century

We need a new 21st century national network of high-speed lines. It would be transformational.

 

[Bromley boy]

London, London, London, London.

Glasgow/Edinburgh/Manchester/Newcastle/Leeds - Bristol, West Country/South Coast/Cardiff take an eternity and are often delayed on a network built in the 19th century

We need a new 21st century national network of high-speed lines. It would be transformational.

Building brand new high speed lines between the UK’s provincial towns and cities would never repay the investment. How many people actually want to travel from Cardiff - Newcastle, Leeds - West Country etc.? If they do there’s Crosscountry rail services, or regional airports.

Even HS2 sounds like a white elephant in its initial stages - it only shaves a few minutes off the existing Birmingham - Euston journey time.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Just like in France, Spain and Japan with their comprehensive network of high speed lines, where there is no domestic air market

I trust you were being ironic because there are still plenty of internal flights in all those countries. HSR has simply reduced the size of the air market but it most definitely has not killed it.

Agreed flying is usually pretty miserable.

I disagree about the need for a network of high speed lines. They are simply unnecessary in such a small country. 125mph (hopefully 140mph in due course) is plenty!

The U.K. has good rail connections between the major commercial centres. Most of the major commercial centres (Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds) can be accessed by rail from London within no more than a couple of hours.

Flying only really starts to make sense for the very longest U.K. journeys e.g. London to Scotland.

Building brand new high speed lines between the UK’s provincial towns and cities would never repay the investment. How many people actually want to travel from Cardiff - Newcastle, Leeds - West Country etc.? If they do there’s Crosscountry rail services, or regional airports.

Even HS2 sounds like a white elephant in its initial stages - it only shaves a few minutes off the existing Birmingham - Euston journey time.

That's all incredibly London-centric which is of course a major shortcoming of our rail network generally. There is plenty of demand for non-London journeys between major commercial centres but rail has only a tiny part of the market. Have a look a traffic on the M6 through the West Midlands or Cheshire or on the hilly bit of the M62: traffic jams for much of the day (and through the night very often on the M6). Even Liverpool-Manchester could be much more attractive by train if a proper high-speed service was available. Routes radiating from London have mostly been sped up during my lifetime but that's much less true of cross-country/trans-Pennine routes. With demand for travel continuing to rise it's just about essential that we build high-speed rail routes for non-London journeys if only to leave more room for local trains.

 

[JamesT]

My preference is to take the train where possible. I don't really like airports and security, and I find trains generally a more comfortable experience than flying in an aircraft.I fairly regularly travel from Aberdeen to the Solent area, and I'll almost always take the train, because:

• Aberdeen-Southampton flights are infrequent
• Aberdeen-London flights are often either to inconvenient airports (e.g. Luton, wrong side of London) or at awkward times (cheap flights to Gatwick seem ideal, but they land too late for the last Gatwick-So'ton train)
• The train takes me much closer to where I want to go, saving me a bus to Aberdeen airport and a train journey from So'ton or a London airport
• No need to deal with airport security (or hang out in airports, which I don't care for)
• I just prefer travelling by train!

However, the journey does take some 9 hours generally, and that is reaching my upper limit. Normally on a journey up to Aberdeen I'm starting to feel a bit restless by Dundee. Getting a bed on the sleeper train makes the journey much more tolerable!
I think if journey time eclipsed 10 hours I'd have to fly; I had to go from Aberdeen to Amsterdam last summer and I didn't really even consider taking the train, as there are frequent flights and the train would have been expensive and taken much longer.

Have you considered flying Edinburgh-Southampton? Four direct flights a day taking 1:35 would knock a fair chunk off that travel time and put you in the Southampton area. Downside is the 3 hour trip to get to the airport (though you'd be doing most of it on your train journey anyway).

 

[Bromley boy]

I trust you were being ironic because there are still plenty of internal flights in all those countries. HSR has simply reduced the size of the air market but it most definitely has not killed it.





That's all incredibly London-centric which is of course a major shortcoming of our rail network generally. There is plenty of demand for non-London journeys between major commercial centres but rail has only a tiny part of the market. Have a look a traffic on the M6 through the West Midlands or Cheshire or on the hilly bit of the M62: traffic jams for much of the day (and through the night very often on the M6). Even Liverpool-Manchester could be much more attractive by train if a proper high-speed service was available. Routes radiating from London have mostly been sped up during my lifetime but that's much less true of cross-country/trans-Pennine routes. With demand for travel continuing to rise it's just about essential that we build high-speed rail routes for non-London journeys if only to leave more room for local trains.

It’s probably a shortcoming of the U.K. generally that the economy is so London-centric.

I’m not sure there’s any economic case for high speed networks being built. The country simply isn’t that big.

The east-west northern rail link sounds like a good idea, although I confess I know very little about it. I feel nervous going north of Watford, here there be monsters !

 

[CheekyBandit]

Have found flying sometimes stressful - using Michael O'Leary's rust buckets coming back from Brussels in 2002. A Nightmare trying to find a bus to rubbish Charleroi airport and when I got there the monitors were showing the wrong check-in desk. I had to holler to those waiting by the closed check-in and then had to wait ages for the plane to turn-up. A few times to Stockholm when I changed planes at Copenhagen where I had to queue to get through passport control with tight connections when I really wanted to get to the gate. Also at Stockholm when 'Bloody Awful' thought it was a good idea to play musical chairs with me. One of these was coming back during the forecast October 2013 storm and was expecting a bumpy ride. To mainland Europe I tend to look at other options - one of these being the coach to Berlin (the cheapest option) - easy transfer and check-in and know the area very well having transferred between coaches and trains at Victoria dozens of times.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

It’s probably a shortcoming of the U.K. generally that the economy is so London-centric.

I’m not sure there’s any economic case for high speed networks being built. The country simply isn’t that big.

The east-west northern rail link sounds like a good idea, although I confess I know very little about it. I feel nervous going north of Watford, here there be monsters !

That is a good point. But the huge benefit of new build HSR, apart from reducing avoidable domestic flying, is releasing capacity on the historic network. This point seems to be very widely misunderstood or ignored. The key is identifying where the large volume point-to-point markets are. So not so different from airline route planning!

 

[Bromley boy]

using Michael O'Leary's rust buckets coming back from Brussels in 2002. A Nightmare trying to find a bus to rubbish Charleroi airport and when I got there the monitors were showing the wrong check-in desk.

Awful as RYR service can be (and the staff are treated no better, probably worse) describing their aircraft as “rust buckets” is a little harsh. They have an impeccable safety record.

 

[Bromley boy]

That is a good point. But the huge benefit of new build HSR, apart from reducing avoidable domestic flying, is releasing capacity on the historic network. This point seems to be very widely misunderstood or ignored. The key is identifying where the large volume point-to-point markets are. So not so different from airline route planning!

But what is the business case for building these new lines and, most importantly, who will be paying for it?

I doubt the private sector will. I doubt the government will either after the debacle of HS2.

In terms of releasing capacity on existing networks we have the “digital railway” for that, supposedly.

Surely improved regional airports and better aviation connections are the way forward?

 

[Requeststop]

Unfortunately these days I travel far more by air then by train. For 38 years I have been a regular air passenger and I do admit that the fun of flying was lost on me years ago. However I do have a routine for every airport I pass through. The big thing is security and immigration. Neither of these is the responsibility of the airlines but the airport authorities. Queues at security is a nightmare and immigration at some airports is way beyond a joke.

My local airport at Port Moresby is a breeze as they have so few International flights, I can check in and get to the flight in 15 mins, the same on arrival. Though recently, midnight at Bangkok was a horror with a wait of just over two hours from touchdown to taxi.

I use my frequent flyers card often to get into airport lounges. Some are really excellent, with the free booze, food wifi etc. A friend back home in the UK has a card which get them into many different lounges around the world irrespective of the airline travelled on. You really have to work on just getting onto the plane and getting off and passing all the administration etc. I wish rail companies would have some sort of frequent users card for lounges etc.

These days, rail travel and air travel have some of the same problems. Is the plane you are due to fly on ready or is it delayed on it's previous plight? Is your train stuck in the depot, or held up by some signals failure? Is there a pilot for the plane? Is there a driver for the train? What help is there when transferring on a delayed flight and what help is offered, and what compensation can I claim? Likewise on a train journey.

These days when travelling by both air and rail you are bombarded with announcements. Not easy when you want to sit back and get a bit of shuteye for a few minutes.

I like the ease of a rail journey, long and short. I like looking at the passing scenery, though there can be nothing better than coming into land into Heathrow from the east on a clear day looking out for rail lines, or travelling from Gatwick to Newquay down the South Coast. Though the longer journey from Paddington to Cornwall is a joy.

Earlier this month I travelled on the Indian-Pacific, trans Australia. 4 days, 3 nights. Wonderful, though costly. So much better than flying.

 

[Robertj21a]

Bit puzzled by this.
12 months ahead of a long distance journey by rail, I can be pretty sure that
1.the fares available when bookings open will be comparable with this year's.
2. there will be trains (if I'm very unlucky, there might be a RRB somewhere).
3. the times will not be vastly different from now

12 months ahead of a flight (depending on route),
1. I can be sure of the fares because I have to pay upfront but
2. the route might still be withdrawn at short notice (not only by Ryanair)
3. the times might very well change (it has happened with 4 of the 5 flights I have taken in the last year, in one case meaning a complete change of plan)

I can't do anything at all to *book* my train trip more than 3 months in advance - that's the problem. I have no real idea of what the advance train fare will be for specific trains on the day I need to travel. It will usually be a part of a wider itinerary so the uncertainties mess up other arrangements (hotel bookings etc can also be made up to 12 months in advance, so I can get my preferred location/room/cheaper advance price).

For flights, I can make a definite booking, know the price, and can even reserve my preferred seat, 12 months in advance. I have flown hundreds of times and never had a route withdrawn at short notice (I accept there is a small risk) and the times have only ever changed by 10-15 mins.

 

[alangla]

It all depends on the journey I guess - if it's Glasgow to London / Birmingham / Manchester then train is first choice, but things like Glasgow - Docklands, needing to be there first thing in the morning, I'd rather sleep in my own bed & get up about 5:30 to fly to London City rather than have a pretty sleepless night on the sleeper & get kicked off at Euston before anything opens.
For anything in the Bristol or Southampton areas, flying would be the first choice and for weekend travel a rail replacement would make the train a complete no-no. Network Rail's current inability to confirm timetables is probably generating a fair bit of business for Flybe & EasyJet.

For anyone living around Aberdeen or Inverness, I'd imagine flying to Manchester / London / Bristol is miles more attractive, both in price and time than rail. I'm not sure if rail could, or should, compete on those flows.

 

[whhistle]

I suppose it depends where you're going and what you're doing.
Some say flying is better but there are clear disadvantages:
> Airports aren't usually located in city centres.
> Long periods of hanging around before.
> Queues at Security.

But they can save a shed load of time.
If you're going on a short break somewhere, it might be better flying so you get more time. Especially if you're going to Sweeden or Finland, somewhere that's not easy to get to by train but easy flying.
I understand the people who fly between Edinburgh and London. I don't understand the people who would get the train that entire way regularly. Yeah, you can work on the train a bit better but the time saved by flying could mean you're in a cafe working too.

 

[Reliablebeam]

I'll break with convention here and say I actually find flying less stressful. I suppose it depends on how much you do this for work and how used you are to the ways of the airport. At a fundamental level, with domestic flights even with security theatre I can usually do some work at the airports. Locally, the route structure round my way tends to favour the nightmare that is Crosscountry trains, which in my experience are so over-crowded no real work can be done, with that stupid stupid system were someone can reserve your seat en-route. Going through London can sometimes be better although VTWC are not always a bed of roses. My place of work won't actually buy 1st class train tickets that might encourage more people to use this option (and if I'm honest seems to be one of the few ways of making long-distance train travel in this country bearable), and thus business is lost to airlines for anything north of say Leeds/Manchester.

That said, the downward spiral of BA has caused colleagues to look at other options, although in some cases this is discovering that EasyJet wasn't as bad as they thought!!

 

[alangla]

As you say, it depends where you're going - if you're lucky enough to live in Edinburgh's new town or to the east of the centre and are going to somewhere dead-centre of London, then VTEC is probably quicker than driving to Edinburgh airport, the inevitable wait, then either the DLR or Heathrow Express at the other end and should be pleasant in 1st class. For something like Livingston to Canary Wharf or West London (Sky have big centres in both Livingston & Osterley, so not an unrealistic business trip) then flying will almost always win.

 

[sprinterguy]

I prefer to travel by train for rail journeys up to four hours, but anything more than that seriously tests my patience (and even on a three or four hour journey, I'll be looking for a decent pub about halfway to break up the tedious monotony). Flying from Birmingham to Aberdeen in 50 minutes, or whatever it was, was pure bliss compared to the long and frustrating slog on the train.

Similarly, while travelling overland by train from Birmingham to Amsterdam was fun, I usually prefer to minimise the travelling time and take a plane on my weekend Euro jaunts.

In both cases the flight would also work out significantly cheaper were it not for my rail staff travel privileges.

 

[benbristow]

Often take the train down to Lincoln from Paisley/Glasgow to see the parents. A good 6 hour and a bit journey

- ScotRail (Paisley Gilmour Street -> Glasgow Central)
- ScotRail (Glasgow Queen Street -> Edinburgh Waverley)
- VTEC (Edinburgh Waverley to either Newark North Gate/Doncaster or Retford)
- East Midlands Trains to Lincoln

Absolute pain in the arse, even worse with a hangover!

So indirect.

 

[sprinterguy]

Even HS2 sounds like a white elephant in its initial stages - it only shaves a few minutes off the existing Birmingham - Euston journey time.

Not really; the primary benefit of HS2 Phase 1 is capacity, taking London - Birmingham/Manchester/Liverpool/Glasgow fast services off the WCML. Over 30 minutes reduction in journey time between London and Birmingham is a significant improvement and considerably more than "a few minutes", and the longer distance services will also benefit from a similar reduction in journey time.

In addition, the eastern arm of HS2 Phase 2, if it gets built, will serve the North East - South West crosscountry axis between Birmingham, the East Midlands, South Yorkshire, Leeds and North East England. This will be a major improvement on the current Crosscountry offering, which remains something of a Cinderella operation compared to the London-centric inter-city operators.

 

[bspahh]

Locally, the route structure round my way tends to favour the nightmare that is Crosscountry trains, which in my experience are so over-crowded no real work can be done, with that stupid stupid system were someone can reserve your seat en-route.

You can stop someone from reserving your seat, by getting a reservation yourself.

 

[yorksrob]

Not really; the primary benefit of HS2 Phase 1 is capacity, taking London - Birmingham/Manchester/Liverpool/Glasgow fast services off the WCML. Over 30 minutes reduction in journey time between London and Birmingham is a significant improvement and considerably more than "a few minutes", and the longer distance services will also benefit from a similar reduction in journey time.

In addition, the eastern arm of HS2 Phase 2, if it gets built, will serve the North East - South West crosscountry axis between Birmingham, the East Midlands, South Yorkshire, Leeds and North East England. This will be a major improvement on the current Crosscountry offering, which remains something of a Cinderella operation compared to the London-centric inter-city operators.

I think Cross Country's Cinderella status could be removed at a stroke, by providing full length trains and dropping prices, either by cascading trains when available, or by building new.

Either of these would be somewhat less expensive than building the Eastern leg of HS2.

 

[frodshamfella]

From my area (Cheshire ) I've a good service from Runcorn to London a good service from Runcorn to Birmingham and patchy service from Acton Bridge to Birmingham. If I want to go to many other UK cities or regions id probably go to Lime Street and frankly it's not very good....Exeter Cardiff Norwich Southampton ...they all take for ever there packed and it can be expensive.....plus often changing with luggage. It's not a nice experience. I do recall going to Exeter before BR finished and it was so much more pleasant , Cross Country Train are pretty poor. I' m not fussed about HS2 but I' d be very interested to have a proper high speed Liverpool Manchester Leeds / Hull Newcastle.

 

[DarloRich]

The only stress in travel is the stress you make yourself.

And honestly I find a lot of the stress is self inflicted. Once you accept that travel can be bumpy and you've put in what workarounds you can you just need to lean back and relax.

is the correct answer.

 

[mpthomson]

Have found flying sometimes stressful - using Michael O'Leary's rust buckets coming back from Brussels in 2002. A Nightmare trying to find a bus to rubbish Charleroi airport and when I got there the monitors were showing the wrong check-in desk. I had to holler to those waiting by the closed check-in and then had to wait ages for the plane to turn-up. A few times to Stockholm when I changed planes at Copenhagen where I had to queue to get through passport control with tight connections when I really wanted to get to the gate. Also at Stockholm when 'Bloody Awful' thought it was a good idea to play musical chairs with me. One of these was coming back during the forecast October 2013 storm and was expecting a bumpy ride. To mainland Europe I tend to look at other options - one of these being the coach to Berlin (the cheapest option) - easy transfer and check-in and know the area very well having transferred between coaches and trains at Victoria dozens of times.

Whatever complaints you can level at Michael O Leary, flying 'rustbuckets' isn't one of them. They have by a country mile the youngest fleet in the UK. They buy/lease very large numbers of standard spec planes from Boeing and keep them for only a few yrs before selling them on or returning them. They've done this since their inception.

 

[sprinterguy]

I think Cross Country's Cinderella status could be removed at a stroke, by providing full length trains and dropping prices, either by cascading trains when available, or by building new.

Either of these would be somewhat less expensive than building the Eastern leg of HS2.

Oh aye, I fully agree - I was just noting that HS2 Phase 2 as currently planned will improve the situation on the Birmingham - North East axis, and isn't entirely London-centric. It's a somewhat sorry state of affairs when the only currently mooted improvement on a major inter-city artery is at least fifteen years away and still subject to approval (Though we'll see what the next XC franchise brings)!

 

[Tetchytyke]

As with everything else in life, it depends where and when you're going.

When I'm heading to the south west, I fly. An hour on EasyJet to Bristol, or five hours on a Voyager? Tough choice. I'm heading down to Cornwall at the end of the year and the only sensible choice was FlyMaybe from Newcastle to Exeter. An hour and a half on the plane, or all day on the train. And with the flight time I can do a full day at work before heading down.

 

[DarloRich]

Whatever complaints you can level at Michael O Leary, flying 'rustbuckets' isn't one of them. They have by a country mile the youngest fleet in the UK. They buy/lease very large numbers of standard spec planes from Boeing and keep them for only a few yrs before selling them on or returning them. They've done this since their inception.

and the business would soon cease trading if there were safety issues! I might call them Ryan Bus but they aren't unsafe in any way, shape or form.

As with everything else in life, it depends where and when you're going.

When I'm heading to the south west, I fly. An hour on EasyJet to Bristol, or five hours on a Voyager? Tough choice. I'm heading down to Cornwall at the end of the year and the only sensible choice was FlyMaybe from Newcastle to Exeter. An hour and a half on the plane, or all day on the train. And with the flight time I can do a full day at work before heading down.

and the "stressful" budget airline revolution makes that possible. We never went on planes as a kid, people didn't go on weekend city breaks to Europe, holidays were packages or a caravan.

Now when i go up to Mums in Glasgow I look to see which is cheaper, plane or train. That didn't happen for normal people 20 years ago

 

[JohnRegular]

One advantage I forgot to mention in my earlier post is that it is much, much easier to take a bike by train than by plane (eurostar excepted, although even that isn't too bad).
This is irrelevant to most people, but I sometimes need to take my bike across the country and I'd never dream of doing it by plane.

 

[Western Lord]

There are a few mentions on here relating to Ryanair which seem to give the impression that it is a British airline. It is Irish and all of its aircraft are registered in the Irish Republic. Someone mentioned upthread that they are registering aircraft in Poland to avoid Brexit issues, as if their aircraft were currently British registered. This is nonsense. After Brexit, Ryanair will have exactly the same rights to operate within the EU as they have now, it is UK-EU flights that may (or may not) become an issue.

 

[HowardGWR]

I gather from preceding correspondence that the XC routes are the basket case where rail is concerned, for many reasons, for both business and leisure travel, when compared with internal air. The OP didn't distinguish between internal and external travel, but clearly the latter is almost irrelevant to this discussion, except for the nearby EU capitals and then only from London or SE.

I feel that the discussion has exposed that there is a huge gap for SW /S Wales/ S Coast to northern destinations and XC is not satisfying it. The question is whether the market is large enough to justify non-stop /high speed services on their own, instead of the "Regional" standards presently offered by XC.

When I've travelled by XC, it has the experience of travelling by NE coach; very definitely down-market. At least coach has decent free wifi. If you could find an unreserved seat on XC, and then, using free wifi, could immediately reserve it, that would help solve one of the issues, for instance.

I hope someone from XC reads the above posts and communicates it to their managers.