Worst commute on Northern Trains?

I think you'd be hard to pressed to find any area in the UK where there's not overcrowding in busy areas. When I used to travel with Scotrail, at times there was barely room to stand for up to 90 minutes at a time. The problems look a lot worse at the moment with the problematic introduction of the HSTs.

Unfortunately we're seeing the results of many years of underinvestment in both the infrastructure and rolling stock which is really coming to a head when there's been such a huge increase in passenger numbers. Northern have been hit probably worst by the shortage of DMU's hence Pacer's still in use, 37 hauled trains etc. although hopefully it is going to get better over the next couple of years.

The Pacers are not compliant with new regulations and they're not going to be upgraded either so that means they will finally be retired. There's a lot of new DMU's and hybrid diesel/electric units coming in at the moment as well so the situation should improve.

The poor state of trains in this country is frustrating to me as well as it should be a reasonably cheap and fast way to travel rather than expensive, slow and uncomfortable. I can cycle a good distance so I like the idea of taking the bike on the train and then I've got that flexibility at the other end but trying to book a bike on a train is a nightmare and the costs are ridiculous, far more than my car costs. Then there's the actual fun experience of being packed into a train surrounded by people cracking the alcohol open at 9:30am which I thought was a bit early but apparently I'm just naive.

Andrew1974 wrote: »

Hi. I don't think it is under investement. I stumbled across a you tube documentary about a rail crash last night. The industry is all about safety. This comes at a price.

It is absolutely under investment and unfortunately it's been happening for so long now it's in a chronic state as we don't have enough trains, many of the trains we do have are old and well past their design life span all running on infrastructure that doesn't have the capacity or design for a modern railway network.

In the 1970's, the class 43 HST/Intercity 125 was brought into service and increased line speed from 100mph to 125mph. In the late 80's born in the ashes of the APT-P project the class 91 Intercity 225 train emerged that go even faster at 140mph. Except it never did and it never will, after 30 years the entire class is being retired. The lack of cab signalling (a crucial safety system which we are years behind on) and unsuitable overhead equipment meant it would be forever stuck at 125mph and as it was geared for a higher speed it would never do, it's unsuitable for use elsewhere.

Meanwhile services in Europe have continued to go faster and able to offer better capacity with the larger loading gauge.

The Pacers the OP mentions are a prominent example of underfunding, these were designed as a quick and cheap stopgap as they're little more than a bus on the rails without even the conventional bogies a rail vehicle normally uses. Nearly 40 years on however the majority of the fleet are still in service despite their poor ride.

Up in the north of Scotland the main road south is the A9 which is mixed single carriageway and dual carriageway. It's a frequent news topic particular discussions about upgrading it to a full dual carriageway. The railway though gets no mention at all and certainly no money, the A9 has received huge amounts of funding over the years but the railway is an old single line which severely limits its capacity. It's the same story and up down the rail network.

I lived in Morley which is the last stop into Leeds on the Huddersfield line. The service didn’t start until 7am, so the first train — always only two ancient carriages — was invariably rammed. Sometimes on the way home in the evening it was not possible to board since it was full. The fumes *inside* the carriages on those old trains is terrible, too.

With situations like this across the UK, it is ridiculous that so much has been spent on HS2 already, let alone that still to be spent. Rail services into London aren’t anywhere near so bad, with large, modern, fast trains. Plus flights are often inexpensive into London airports. HS2 seems like a bizarre mis-direction of resources.

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

It is absolutely under investment and unfortunately it's been happening for so long now it's in a chronic state as we don't have enough trains, many of the trains we do have are old and well past their design life span all running on infrastructure that doesn't have the capacity or design for a modern railway network.

Yet there are lots of "modern" trains in storage, being scrapped etc., which are far younger than the Pacers/Sprinters that are still in daily use (and likely to be for many more years in the case of Sprinters). That looks like more a matter of poor planning than under investment.