Challenges of travelling by train

Evening all. I just need to share this with you.

I commute to and from work and am currently on a fairly crowded train. My line have just introduced new carriages where the seats are closer together so if you don’t know the person next to you it’s fairly intense. I struggle with this most days and often want to scream, but instead develop a banging headache. And why is that as people get off the train and there are more seats, the person next to you doesn’t move? I find this so unbearable some evenings that I say excuse me and am ready to head to a clear set of seats I can see and then the person I was sat next to moves there anyway - long sigh.

Anyway, thanks for letting me share this with you. Does anyone have similar experiences with public transport?

Parents
  • In my 23 years of living in the U.K. the U.K. rail system is a complete disgrace and there is no excuse for it - as an alternative to flying and air travel, I use SailRail (train and ferry) services from Manchester Piccadilly (platform 13) via Chester (change trains) to Holyhead for the ferry to Dublin and it’s a complete joke - coming back from Dublin overnight off the 20.55 sailing (arriving in Holyhead at 00.20) the earliest train to Manchester via Chester departs Holyhead at 04.25 - in October 2022, despite my best efforts to avoid it, I was stranded in Holyhead for 2 days due to a train strike and to add insult to injury, I had to pay extra for a single ticket from Holyhead to Manchester as my original SailRail ticket had expired, but the train only went as far as Lladnuo Junction and we went in a packed coach to Chester, stopping at every Rural Welsh village enroute where no one could get on, not even standing room on the coach, leaving a lot of disgruntled locals in thier wake - TfW have totally mismanaged this route compared to Avanti and they never have enough carriages for the passengers needing to travel - re nationalisation of the railways will not help this situation, the only thing that will work is for an external company to come in from the Far East, possibly Japan, Taiwan or even the CCP and for them to take complete and direct control of the railways with the relevant laws being passed in Parliament, no interference being allowed and all other existing U.K. rail bodies being abolished - any limited funding would be strictly performance related after a small initial investment was put in by the government and that would be it 

  • IIM

    Your story dosen't surprise me, we don't count up here in North Wales, everybody seems to forget about us, every train stops at every rural station with seemingly random exemptions. It's slow and expensive, to get to Llanddudno itself where all the big shops are, is two train journeys, the first from wherever your'e travelling from to Llanddudno Junction, which is an industrial estate and some houses, then another train to actually get into Llanddudno itself, a journey of about 4-5 miles.

    To be honest I can't see much diference between TfW and Avanti, possibly because our infrastructure is so poor, we are one of the few areas that aren't electrified and palns to do so are constantly put on hold or cancelled. The line itself is vulnerable to storms and flooding.

    I'm always amazed that Holyhead has no hotels near the port, the ones that there are seem to be more like flop houses, there's one travelodge in Holyhead, but if you didnt know it was there you'd never find it. Holyhead is getting a load of levelling up money and is being done up, or the high st is anyway, I doubt if the "improvements" will go more than 1 or 2 streets back and all the problems will be swept furhter up the hill. We're supposed to be becoming a freeport, it's supposed to bring investment, jobs and all manner of wonderful things, cruise liners in the port, more tourists who get off the liner and get bused to places around the island and mainland. I don't think it will do much for local people, who won't get improved transport links or be able to afford to rent the "improved" shops. It's all just another con, doing something for the sake of being seen to be doing something.

  • I’ve stayed in that awful Travelodge in Holyhead when I eventually found it - and then they keep shelving the plans for a high-speed rail tunnel under the Irish Sea from Holyhead to Dublin which has been going on for decades - the Labour Welsh Assembly is a complete joke with their “regeneration” plans (straight out of the communist playbook) and it’s very clear that the people of North Wales are totally fed up of the situation and are totally disillusioned and disheartened at being totally ignored - I know that many of the beautiful listed station buildings on the North Wales line have to be preserved, but this must not be at the expense of the local people - I went into the local ASDA in Holyhead, totally dog-tired, totally charming and homely little store and the staff there were so warm and welcoming - the people of North Wales deserve far better than the abuse and neglect they are getting from the idiots of the Labour Welsh Assembly in Cardiff - even the train station and ferry terminal in Holyhead needs a massive upgrade as it’s stuck in a 1960’s time warp 

  • Honestly I don't think a different party in charge in Cardiff would make any difference to what happens up here, we'd be differently ignored and put upon at best and totally dumped on at worst. Partly it's to do with geography, the mountains that seperate us from the rest of Wales and partly its to do with ancient rivalries that are still going strong after centuries. North Walian dialects are different from those in the south and yet are taught across Wales as standard which pee's everyone else off when they're told they don't speak proper Welsh. Gwynedd still see's itself as a different country to the rest of Wales and you find all sorts of absurdities, like Age UK isn't Uk wide it only covers England, Age Cymru cover most of Wales except up here in the North where theres Age Gwynedd.

    I'm not sure an undersea tunnel is a good idea in an active earthquake zone, I know we don't have big earthquakes but you don't a big one to make an undersea tunnel unsafe and the very idea gives me total heebie jeebies. The other thing about a rail tunnel is the effect it would have on the port and the jobs provided by the ferries. They keep talking about a new bridge over the Menai Straits too, but where it would go no one agrees on. Personally I think it would be better to have a ferry from Liverpool docks to Holyhead, it would take a lot of traffic off the roads and allow foot passengers to have a day out here or in Liverpool, I think it would be a lot quicker too.

Reply
  • Honestly I don't think a different party in charge in Cardiff would make any difference to what happens up here, we'd be differently ignored and put upon at best and totally dumped on at worst. Partly it's to do with geography, the mountains that seperate us from the rest of Wales and partly its to do with ancient rivalries that are still going strong after centuries. North Walian dialects are different from those in the south and yet are taught across Wales as standard which pee's everyone else off when they're told they don't speak proper Welsh. Gwynedd still see's itself as a different country to the rest of Wales and you find all sorts of absurdities, like Age UK isn't Uk wide it only covers England, Age Cymru cover most of Wales except up here in the North where theres Age Gwynedd.

    I'm not sure an undersea tunnel is a good idea in an active earthquake zone, I know we don't have big earthquakes but you don't a big one to make an undersea tunnel unsafe and the very idea gives me total heebie jeebies. The other thing about a rail tunnel is the effect it would have on the port and the jobs provided by the ferries. They keep talking about a new bridge over the Menai Straits too, but where it would go no one agrees on. Personally I think it would be better to have a ferry from Liverpool docks to Holyhead, it would take a lot of traffic off the roads and allow foot passengers to have a day out here or in Liverpool, I think it would be a lot quicker too.

Children
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