The trains we deserve?

I went (from Edinburgh) to London last weekend, for the first time in a while.

There are always people ready to criticise the trains in Britain --- usually, I think, unfairly.
But once again, I was left with the impression that Britain has a rail network run by accountants who invariably travel by car.

How else could we get the situation where passengers cannot board the train until just a couple of minutes before it departs. So if you're on the station early (something one would think they'd want to encourage), you can't get yourself comfortable in your seat and wait. Instead, you have to hang around the station concourse until they display the platform number, and then join a throng of other passengers hurrying to the train.

Now, you might think that having pre-booked seats would mean this was not a problem. What does matter if there are other people heading for the train, if you can be sure that you seat will be there even if you arrive at the last minute?

Well, it matters if you have got a large bag with you. Which means it matters to a significant proportion of the people who travel at weekends and holiday times. Because each carriage has
something like three quarters of the baggage space required by when the train is busy. Presumably this lets them increase the number of seats, and therefore improve the "efficiency" of the service. But it means that while the first people onto the train can stow their bags and cases easily on the racks at the ends of the carriage, those who come later don't have that luxury, and some people have no choice but to just leave their bags in the gangway. Where they get in the way of everybody else. Including the tea trolley, which often cannot operate when the train is full.

The same sort of thinking shows up in the buffet car. The new designs have space for only one member of staff behind the counter, which of course, limits how quickly people can get served. They have also reduced the amount of display space, so that people are more likely to spend time asking about what is and isn't available. Which means that a queue quickly appears --- an eventually the carriage designers appear not to have envisaged, since there is nowhere for it to go. Two or three people can wait in the area of the counter, but anyone over that has to stand in (and block) the passage through the middle of the coach.

On a long journey, it's nice to be able to get up and stretch your legs, and maybe get a nice fresh cup of tea or a hot snack. Doing this on a car journey will add at least a quarter of an hour to the journey time. It should be one of the advantages of going by rail. But it is one that is minimised by coach designs that mean you have to clamber past other people's luggage and then stand in an aisle for several minutes while one member of staff rushes to deal with a sizeable queue.

What a way to run a railway...

Robert.