Though I am a railway worker, hopefully the following is not too biased.
To put it briefly, when it goes well and you have enough space, train travel is pretty civilised. Realistically speaking, you don't have to worry about controlling it, refuelling it, making an investment in a vehicle, turning up hours in advance of travel, or what other drivers are doing. Train travel in the UK in particular is extraordinarily safe for the normal passenger, and though delays do occur, a very good number of those delays are actually the price we pay for safety. And we all know that there is now a pretty good frequency of service on many London/South-East/Midlands/Intercity routes. Not all, granted, but many.
However, obviously fares are either high or feel very high for many, sometimes out of proportion with desired flexibility (and I think that's often the crux - paying hundreds of pounds more for the choice of one or two more trains, maybe), and the system of purchasing tickets and choosing operators is fairly fragmented. The latter is actually more confusing and/or the cause of the former two in many cases. And of course investment in information for each and every type of journey and passenger has not kept up in accordance with the boom in demand. Because of this demand we all have our little personal niggles as well, like interchange opportunities between lines in major cities which somehow haven't ever been built, or fluctuations in when the first/last trains are on some lines, and so on.
So many things, so few words I can reasonably write. Whilst a leisure journey that goes well is often quite civilised, a commute in bedlam at Clapham Junction is often not. The demand is extremely hard to keep up with and hopefully there will be more and more will to do so. Integration of lines and modes of transport is surely what needs to be done; it's something I like greatly when it is done well. And of course it will be crucial to develop skills in predicting passenger information needs before they know it. Again, I love it when you have somebody skilled who can predict what goes on CIS/Tyrell emails/websites before or as you need it, rather than having to ask. Sorting this out is key.
This morning the 6.40 was 2 minutes late leaving Brighton due to a signal failure. It said so above the train o the online departure board.
In advance of that I saw that the 6.19 Brighton service just said delayed whilst at Gatwick Airport and the 6.30 Brighton service may have done as well.
So I out two and two together and decided they must all be delayed by a signalling fault so it obviously just happened.
But I was actually wrong. Eventually the first Brighton train left Gatwick 1 minutes late and the note about a problem under investigation was put up. This then changed to disruptive passengers. The following train had no note but was 8 minutes late. Which means that the 6.40 train from Brighton, which was the least of the delayed trains, was actually delayed by a minor singalong fault around Brighton way.
What this shows is that a little information to passengers can lead to them making incorrect assumptions. Now clearly it's very difficult to get information out quickly enough as you have to verify it and make sure it's accurate. The information may not even be known about as the people holding the information may be dealing with the incident itself. Saying that the driver has to let the signalman know they are being delayed.
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