Third world UK train service!

Billy-no-Money

Northern Rail do have some half-decent routes, e.g. York - Blackpool, Leeds - Carlisle, most of their electric routes. But in general their diesel units are a mish-mash of hand-me-downs and early-80s relics, and it makes no difference whether you're travelling on a busy commuter route into Liverpool or Manchester, or making your way to Gainsborough (I grew up there by the way, live in Blackpool now). Those awful 'Pacer' railbuses can appear on pretty much any route.

Your train, if it was three-coach, was probably a 'Class 144' - these, while pretty dire, are nowhere near as bad as the 'Class 142' trains that predominate around Manchester.

What's particularly annoying though is that other operators, such as in Wales and the South West, have made the best of these things, giving them refurbishments that make them almost tolerable. Northern, however, persists in keeping them running with gaffer tape and cable ties.

geerex

Billy-no-Money wrote: »

Northern Rail do have some half-decent routes, e.g. York - Blackpool, Leeds - Carlisle, most of their electric routes. But in general their diesel units are a mish-mash of hand-me-downs and early-80s relics, and it makes no difference whether you're travelling on a busy commuter route into Liverpool or Manchester, or making your way to Gainsborough (I grew up there by the way, live in Blackpool now). Those awful 'Pacer' railbuses can appear on pretty much any route.

Your train, if it was three-coach, was probably a 'Class 144' - these, while pretty dire, are nowhere near as bad as the 'Class 142' trains that predominate around Manchester.

What's particularly annoying though is that other operators, such as in Wales and the South West, have made the best of these things, giving them refurbishments that make them almost tolerable. Northern, however, persists in keeping them running with gaffer tape and cable ties.

Not sure what you're not getting here. Northern do not NEED to spend money on pacers, therefore they don't. Shareholder value, and all that.

jbuchanangb

It might be interesting to know the OP's actual journey, because the typical journey time shown on route planners is York to Gainsborough is about an hour and a half. Example: 8th July depart York 14.01 change Retford (44 minute wait), arrive Gainsborough 15.38. On Saturday 12th July you could dep York 14:35, change Doncaster (10 minute wait) and get to Gainsborough at 15:32, a journey time of 57 minutes.

Stigy

geerex wrote: »

Not sure what you're not getting here. Northern do not NEED to spend money on pacers, therefore they don't. Shareholder value, and all that.

Indeed, however, most franchise agreements dictate what TOCs can and can't do. Northern aren't going to spend money off their own backs, and would only do so as part of their franchise if this was written in to it.

A lot of TOCs have their old stock refurbished to a decent standard and are adding carriages etc. For example, SWT recently got a numb rod 456s from Southern which were quite tired, probably having previously been refurbished when Southern first appeared! SWT are now halfway through a refurb project which adds decent CCTV and new paint and interiors. I doubt very much whether they'd do this with a) Their own money and/or b) being told to by the Government.

yorkie2

knightstyle wrote: »

So I wanted to go from York to Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, 60 miles, 1hr 15mins by car, over 2 hours by train.
Took the train, change at Doncaster, 3 mins to find correct train, some people didn't make it!

Those who didn't make it are entitled to compensation under Delay Repay (unless there were connections available which brought the overall delay to 29 minutes or less)

knightstyle wrote: »

Then the train we were on .....

knightstyle wrote: »

So travelling between two county towns, York and Lincoln is a backwater??? Well its not London but I think we should get better than this.

The other poster was referring to the Doncaster to Lincoln train, and was not describing York as a "backwater".

stevemLS

I went on Leeds to Harrogate, they had obviously borrowed a train as the electric lady making announcements kept telling us that the next station was Liverpool - woke a few of us up!

michaelvintner

The_ICT_Engineer wrote: »

This is rail travel in the 3rd World.

And that is off peak, it's even worse during rush hour.