Train Behaviours!

[Blue Hills]

Trains.
Should be consigned to history.

god help the bicycle then.

 

[mjr]

There is.A car or van.

Nah, they're used to kill cyclists and hog space on the roads that we want.

 

[Sniper68]

Just had a quick peek at the amount of freight moved by trains last year and noted that it could easily be replaced by a mere 56 Million 40 tonne Articulated Lorry journeys.

That's all they're good for.We use them to transport our Steel between departments and between our plants.
I wonder how many empty carriage passenger train journeys there are per annum?Rarely,if ever,see a full train.In fact they're almost always less than half full

 

[FishFright]

That's all they're good for.We use them to transport our Steel between departments and between our plants.
I wonder how many empty carriage passenger train journeys there are per annum?Rarely,if ever,see a full train.In fact they're almost always less than half full

As often as I see a huge SUV with one occupant ?

 

[KnittyNorah]

Trains.
Should be consigned to history.

When I'm on a train, with or without my bike, my mode of transport isn't running pedestrian crossings, pushing cyclists off their bikes or intimidating all and any other legitimate, especially unpowered, road users - as ICE and E motor vehicles in the road do, all day and night long.
When I'm using a train and have my bike with me, it is the only mode of transport in the UK, other than some ferries, for which I don't have to either fold (remind me why I bought a folder ...) or dismantle my bike at least in part or have special fittings attached to the vehicle that will carry it, merely to transport it a short distance never mind the length or width of the country.
Neither do temporarily-out-of-use trains park up on footways, damaging the surface for future pedestrian usage and blocking current pedestrian usage, especially the usage by those who need to use assistive devices, for whom free passage on the footway is even more vital.

Outdated?
Nothing is a more ridiculous concept than trains being 'outdated'.
Modern trains are a way we might still maintain some semblance of freedom of movement over long distances as the climate change crisis accelerates - or do you think the climate change crisis is an 'outdated' concept too?

 

[Oldhippy]

Very well put Knitty. It is cars and the ludicrous adverts implying endless freedoms, empty roads and fabulous lifestyles you'll have if you buy xy or z that are outdated.

 

[Blue Hills]

That's all they're good for.We use them to transport our Steel between departments and between our plants.
I wonder how many empty carriage passenger train journeys there are per annum?Rarely,if ever,see a full train.In fact they're almost always less than half full

How often do you see a full car?
Do you stop vans and check to see that they are loaded up in the back?
Have you studied the economics and planet issues of a half full train?
where do you think the folk on that half full train would be if not on a train?

 

[Blue Hills]

Nothing is a more ridiculous concept than trains being 'outdated'.


Modern trains are a way we might still maintain some semblance of freedom of movement over long distances as the climate change crisis accelerates - or do you think the climate change crisis is an 'outdated' concept too?

Agree totally with your first sentence knitty.

It was a concept that was put forward with all seriousness in the late 70s/early 80s though by some tory nutjobs. I well remember listening to one such mouthing off on the radio when I was in my shared house student kitchen.

He argued that train lines should be tarmacced over and turned into roads.

Apart from other things, I don't think he'd looked at the width of the average main road/motorway.

There was also the argument put forward by some including him that railways were an historical accident/aberattion - that they would never have existed if the internal combustion engine hadn't arrived in a uasable form just a few decades earlier.

It was doubtless such nuts who caused Britain to be left behind on railways - after we pretty much invented them and indeed built many for foriegn folk. Little evidence of other countries thinking trains are the past.

Agree also with your second - few things as liberating as cycling, hopping on a train, cycling the other end. I do it often crossing the country. And apart from a nice ride get a special kick out of sticking a finger to the marketing/pricing algorithms of the train company wonks. You can often get a very cheap train trip, hop off, have a nice cycle to another company and chuck your bike on another cheap train. And discover stuff along the way.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Rarely,if ever,see a full train.

 

[JtB]

Living close to a railway myself I would like to see polluting diesel trains consigned to history and replaced by electric trains.

PS (edit): I’d also like to see Network Rail resume managing the trees and vegetation along their lines which they just let grow unchecked now (but that’s a different topic for a different thread).

 

[Sniper68]

Agree totally with your first sentence knitty.

It was a concept that was put forward with all seriousness in the late 70s/early 80s though by some tory nutjobs. I well remember listening to one such mouthing off on the radio when I was in my shared house student kitchen.

He argued that train lines should be tarmacced over and turned into roads.

Apart from other things, I don't think he'd looked at the width of the average main road/motorway.

There was also the argument put forward by some including him that railways were an historical accident/aberattion - that they would never have existed if the internal combustion engine hadn't arrived in a uasable form just a few decades earlier.

It was doubtless such nuts who caused Britain to be left behind on railways - after we pretty much invented them and indeed built many for foriegn folk. Little evidence of other countries thinking trains are the past.

Agree also with your second - few things as liberating as cycling, hopping on a train, cycling the other end. I do it often crossing the country. And apart from a nice ride get a special kick out of sticking a finger to the marketing/pricing algorithms of the train company wonks. You can often get a very cheap train trip, hop off, have a nice cycle to another company and chuck your bike on another cheap train. And discover stuff along the way.

I can assure you the last thing ‘lauded’ by myself would be some Tory nut job and if I was the sort to take offence I certainly would at that comment.Thankfully I’m not.
I just don’t like trains.

 

[steveindenmark]

Jannie and I came over from Denmark a few years back to collect a motorbike in the lake district. We landed in Edinburgh and I had warned her about how bloody awful the trains and staff in the UK were.

It was if I had been set up all the way from Edinburgh to the lake district. The train was spotless, the train guard was funny and entertaining everyone. We had booked seats but he told us just to find any any seat we were comfortable in. The train stations were clean and were filled with flowers. The sun was shining, it was the lake district FFS. I could not wait to change trains, I knew it would be different then. It wasnt, it was probably nicer.

Getting Jannie on the motorbike was a problem. She wanted the train to take the strain all the way home.

Trains had certainly improved since I lived in the UK.. I remember getting the night train from London to Edinburgh in the 70s. Remember it, I will never forget it. I had no idea there were 300 stops between London and Edinburgh. What a nightmare.

 

[FrankCrank]

Used to quite enjoy train travel, but that's going back a few years. Last few times on trips back there, it all seemed a bit intimidating, just getting a ticket from the machine was an ordeal, then all the security barriers and selfish 'ratracers' to contend with.
Thankfully, there's a good bus service from Reading to Oxford for a nice day out.
Reckon I'm due a trip to the Smoke next time back though - no choice but the dreaded train

 

[Blue Hills]

Jannie and I came over from Denmark a few years back to collect a motorbike in the lake district. We landed in Edinburgh and I had warned her about how bloody awful the trains and staff in the UK were.

It was if I had been set up all the way from Edinburgh to the lake district. The train was spotless, the train guard was funny and entertaining everyone. We had booked seats but he told us just to find any any seat we were comfortable in. The train stations were clean and were filled with flowers. The sun was shining, it was the lake district FFS. I could not wait to change trains, I knew it would be different then. It wasnt, it was probably nicer.

Getting Jannie on the motorbike was a problem. She wanted the train to take the strain all the way home.

Trains had certainly improved since I lived in the UK.. I remember getting the night train from London to Edinburgh in the 70s. Remember it, I will never forget it. I had no idea there were 300 stops between London and Edinburgh. What a nightmare.

yep things have improved a lot - I tend to think the improvement really started after the Paddington Train crash and that period when the entire mainline network was forced to run at crawling pace for weeks because of a dire uncertainty over the state of the tracks. Chaos.
You might have changed your impression on that trip of a few years ago though if you had strayed onto bits of the Northern network running its notorious tin cans. Only disappeared last year. And of course Northern was taken back into state control recently after an extended timetable meltdown.

 

[Tenkaykev]

Just had a quick peek at the amount of freight moved by trains last year and noted that it could easily be replaced by a mere 56 Million 40 tonne Articulated Lorry journeys.

Replying to myself to add that gross axle weight is now 44 Tonnes. Ah, fewer journeys perhaps? But no, the 44 Tonnes includes the weight of the lorries, looking at the freight transport industry blog it would seem that about 26 Tonnes is the weight of freight carried, so many many more journeys.